Future Shock author Alvin Toffler dies

Toffler, way ahead of the curve as futurist, was 87.

He died late Monday in his sleep at his home in the Bel Air neighborhood of Los Angeles, said Yvonne Merkel, a spokeswoman for his Reston, Virginia-based consulting firm, Toffler Associates.

One of the world’s most famous “futurists,” Toffler was far from alone in seeing the economy shift from manufacturing and mass production to a computerized and information-based model. But few were more effective at popularizing the concept, predicting the effects and assuring the public that the traumatic upheavals of modern times were part of a larger and more hopeful story.

“Future Shock,” a term he first used in a 1965 magazine article, was how Toffler defined the growing feeling of anxiety brought on by the sense that life was changing at a bewildering and ever-accelerating pace. His book combined an understanding tone and page-turning urgency as he diagnosed contemporary trends and headlines, from war protests to the rising divorce rate, as symptoms of a historical cycle overturning every facet of life.

“We must search out totally new ways to anchor ourselves, for all the old roots — religion, nation, community, family, or profession — are now shaking under the hurricane impact of the accelerative thrust,” he wrote.

By: Alan

Alan Colmes is the publisher of Liberaland.