Future Shock by Alvin Toffler Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Future Shock
Book Review: The Future Shock that's NOW !
Summary: 5 Stars
Few times in life one gets the chance to be in such a position in which at the same time it is possible to speculate on the future outcome of social change, and yet
at the same time be able to test such ideas against the
hard facts of real life.
Alvin Toffler's Future Shock is a book that allows us all to do just that; in simple yet imagination-capturing terms this is a classic 20th-century sociological masterpiece that will take you from the ideas of an ever changing world, to the analysis of the instability of rapid shifting institutions, from a technologically overstimulating environment, to the social impact of the throw-away society.
Throughout the book (originally published in 1970) Toffler will guide the neophyte and the erudite alike in a fascinating vision of a future few of us are ready to assimilate, and that at the same time we all seem destined to confront just as we read the book.
Of course, this is not an actual attempt to describe a single must-happen-this-way vision of the future, but no doubt that from the vantage point of most societies today, it is astonishingly easy to find actual parallelisms between our every day lifes and Toffler's paradigm.
This is definitely a must-read ......have you had some Future Shock lately ?Book Review: The History of the Future
Summary: 5 Stars
After reading The Deviant's Advantage, Media Virus, and a little bit of what Faith Popcorn wrote I wanted to find the source of their wisdom. Aside from personal experience, where do a lot of our ideas come from? I think one of those sources is a visionary named Alvin Toffler.
Even though this book was written in 1971, it is still totally relevant. I you want to know where society is headed you need a thorough understanding of where we came from, where we are currently, and what the best in the field once predicted where we will be. Even though Toffler wasn't completely accurate, his trajectory of foresight was both accurate and enlightening.
Future Shock provides a model for the future aspiring Futurist. His theories merge physics, math, and sociology(acceleration, and growth of society); sociological architecture (designing society for the short term but making it adaptable for the future); an extremely accurate parallel to Douglas Coupland's Generation X (transient youth and the resulting political apathy); I could just go on - Future shock is a treasure trove of insights.
What I loved the most was his prediction of "neural devices that increase sensitivity to texture..." Faith Popcorn made the same prediction - a FULL 30 years after Toffler! Even Faith seems to borrow from a 30 year old book.
This book has something for every one interested in the humanities, business (Marketing was my reason), or just reading interesting books.
Book Review: The History of the Future
Summary: 5 Stars
After reading The Deviant's Advantage, Media Virus, and a little bit of what Faith Popcorn wrote I wanted to find the source of their wisdom. Aside from personal experience, where do a lot of our ideas come from? I think one of those sources is a visionary named Alvin Toffler.
Even though this book was written in 1971, it is still totally relevant. I you want to know where society is headed you need a thorough understanding of where we came from, where we are currently, and what the best in the field once predicted where we will be. Even though Toffler wasn't completely accurate, his trajectory of foresight was both accurate and enlightening.
Future Shock provides a model for the future aspiring Futurist. His theories merge physics, math, and sociology(acceleration, and growth of society); sociological architecture (designing society for the short term but making it adaptable for the future); an extremely accurate parallel to Douglas Coupland's Generation X (transient youth and the resulting political apathy); I could just go on - Future shock is a treasure trove of insights.
What I loved the most was his prediction of "neural devices that increase sensitivity to texture..." Faith Popcorn made the same prediction - a FULL 30 years after Toffler! Even Faith seems to borrow from a 30 year old book.
This book has something for every one interested in the humanities, business (Marketing was my reason), or just reading interesting books.
Book Review: The Shocking Future: Are you becoming Obsolete?
Summary: 5 Stars
This is a visionary work of literature, that was written in 1970. What is amazing is the realities of today that this author has so accurately captured 40 years ago. The book anticipated what we are facing today, an accelerated rate of changes in technology.
Every couple of months, as you may now be aware, CPU chip speeds in desktop and laptop computers keep increasing. Staying on the cutting edge of technology is almost a full-time job. Next we are faced with an ever-changing cellular phone and MP3 player product range. Now, even the way we read books is changing with things like the ipad and the kindle. Where will this all end? Do we have to keep running just to keep pace with what's happening? The Internet and the dramatic impact that this has made, may not even have been fully envisioned by this author, but it is here and evolving at its own rate, making the earth a global village.
Mr. Toffler attacks this problem in Six Parts as follows:
- The Death of Permanence
- Transience
- Novelty
- Diversity
- The Limits of Adaptability
- Strategies for Survival
In the end, each of us must formulate our own strategies for this rapidly and ever changing world that we now live in. This author, has given some clinical and effective methods that we can tailor to our own personal situation. We must all continue to adjust or run the risk of being left behind and becoming 'obsolete'.
Book Review: Toffler's Political Prescription Yet to be Realized
Summary: 5 Stars
After devouring this book on first publication (literally camping out in a vest pocket park in London to finish it after getting off a transatlantic flight), I was curious to see whether I would still find this intellectually rich, superbly organized and artfully written work as groundbreaking as I felt it was four decades ago. Again savoring each vignette and prognostication, the answer was a resounding "yes".
Toffler was not the first intellectual to amass, synthesize and extrapolate vast data and opinions on a variety of subjects of interest to the body politic - think tanks had been quietly going about that very work for years - but he was the first to popularize the whole process and make it accessible to the lay person. "Future Shock" not only became its own buzz phrase but set off a veritable cottage industry of crystal ball gazers that remain busy at work to this day - some of them intellectually rigorous, some of them decidedly so-so.
"Future Shock" has stood the test of time due to its probing analysis of trend lines, how they might play out and their likely concomitant effects; Toffler's batting average on that score is quite high. His detailed observations about what we now call the Internet was light-years ahead of its time, and he also plumbed numerous other topics (long-distance commuting, the breakdown of top-down organizational structures, increasing societal mobility and the growing impermanence of "community") with great foresight.
It is in the area of democratic governance, however, that time has not been overly kind to Toffler, not because Toffler's understanding of the need for more effective long-term debate and planning was misguided, but because our elected leaders, most especially at the federal level (where Toffler's comments about a disconnect between the body politic's opinions and public policy development seem most directly aimed), do not possess or care to exercise the leadership necessary to make hard choices.
When the author suggests an approach of "anticipatory democracy" centered on a variety of forums and "what if?" scenarios in which a wide variety of Americans can express their opinions about what kind of country they want, he's on to something. Nearly 40 years later, the body politic has access to a dazzling array of methods to express their informed or semi-informed opinions: national polls, town hall meetings, focus groups, letters to elected officials, etc. Yet for all the data and all the public input our elected officials can mine, all but a few (abetted by endless election cycles and a horde of lobbyists) seem constitutionally incapable of arriving at more than an incremental solution to the big problems of our day. Repeatedly slapped in the face by energy shortages, high gasoline prices and rogue, oil-rich states, our reaction is to endlessly debate North Slope drilling, the windfall profits tax and CAFE standards; meanwhile, the "early adapters" (still fewer than 5 percent of the US population at this writing), vote in the marketplace by buying hybrid vehicles. Similarly, the crisis enveloping Social Security is met with a series of "bipartisan commissions", and the mind-numbing issue of bioethics is sent to a cabal of academics/presidential advisors for analysis with no national debate whatsoever. The late, great Daniel Patrick Moynihan got it right: if you want to address a serious public policy issue, be prepared to invest at least 30 years in the process. No one should fault Toffler for the inability of others to take up his crusade.
"Future Shock" remains Alvin (and Heidi) Toffler's finest accomplishment and one of the most intellectually stimulating non-fiction works of the 20th Century. Let's hope the last chapter of this seminal work - the one on anticipatory democracy - finally gets the audience it deserves.