I read this years ago & liked it. It's worth reading again, almost 40 years after it was originally published. It's even more true. 'Future Shock' is based on the term 'Culture Shock' & Toffler's book deals with how the future is coming at us so fast that we're all in a state of shock from dealing with the changes. His writing is excellent, often illustrating large complex ideas with understandable examples, but he doesn't over-simplify nor repeat himself.He's written several other books, at least two to update this one. I haven't read them & I'm not sure I will. There's a good article on him & this book on Wikipedia.It's amazing how much this book still pertains today. It's heartening to see how many of the trends he wrote about have come true - it gave me confidence in his writing. It's a pity how some haven't come true - it defies logic & often points out areas where our society is too conservative. ( )

Bibliography: p. 461-483. ( )

Well, let me say that the Bible is dull, stodgy, and mostly wrong, but it's considered a classic. So too with this work, but ...

I first read this book when I was in 8th grade, one year after it was published. I originally found it a tad outrageous but quite intriguing. I bought the major premise at that time that the amount of information being produced, disseminated, and consumed was increasing and would increase to frightening levels.

It IS dated, but Mr. Toffler is one of the few thinkers of his era who had an inkling of what was going to happen in the info-verse. Bruce Springsteen wrote a song called "57 Channels and Nothin's On" which was meant to express the huge number of TV stations in a modern, technological world, and how vapid their content could be. Vapid content aside, the idea of "57 channels" was considered an absurd exaggeration. Now we have almost infinite channels (of information) and Springsteen's song seems quaint.

My career as a librarian spans 1989 to the present and I feel as if I've been straddling that part of Mr. Toffler's exponential curve where it turned upward and went frighteningly off the scale.

Welcome to 2009, and thanks for giving me fair warning Mr. Toffler. ( )

I feel I ought to have this as it's a classic, but it's dull, stodgy and mostly wrong. ( )

Future Shock is the disease of change. Its symptoms are already here.
Future Shock tells what happens to people overwhelmed by too rapid change.
Future Shock looks at the human side of tomorrow. Brilliantly disturbing, it analyses the new and dangerous society now emerging and shows how to come to terms with the future.