Status
Available
Call number
Collection
Publication
Bantam (1980)
Description
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * The classic work that predicted the anxieties of a world upended by rapidly emerging technologies--and now provides a road map to solving many of our most pressing crises. "Explosive . . . brilliantly formulated." --The Wall Street Journal Future Shock is the classic that changed our view of tomorrow. Its startling insights into accelerating change led a president to ask his advisers for a special report, inspired composers to write symphonies and rock music, gave a powerful new concept to social science, and added a phrase to our language. Published in over fifty countries, Future Shock is the most important study of change and adaptation in our time. In many ways, Future Shock is about the present. It is about what is happening today to people and groups who are overwhelmed by change. Change affects our products, communities, organizations--even our patterns of friendship and love. But Future Shock also illuminates the world of tomorrow by exploding countless clichés about today. It vividly describes the emerging global civilization: the rise of new businesses, subcultures, lifestyles, and human relationships--all of them temporary. Future Shock will intrigue, provoke, frighten, encourage, and, above all, change everyone who reads it.… (more)
User reviews
LibraryThing member fugitive
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
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 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
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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.
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LibraryThing member jimmaclachlan
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
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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. Show Less
LibraryThing member mitchanderson
Ignore the year of publication and rest assured — you’re sure to learn something of interest from Alvin Toffler’s Future Shock. Outside of a few dated terms, much of what Toffler speaks to — the social, economic, political, and technological trends of the past, present and future — are
Toffler begins by giving us a broad overview of the state of contemporary society as it stood just as the USA’s golden age was coming to a close. Much of the initial chapters provide overviews of the sociological and psychosocial viewpoints of an uprooted and hyperactive tech-enabled “technosociety” (one of a few dated terms). Touching on the subjects of alienation, grounding, values and belief systems, a la carte lifestyles, political representation and knowledge, Toffler leaves no stone unturned as he exposes to us to the stark realities of the social dysfunction already well underway at the time of publication. Though it paints a rather bleak image of the future, much of what he speaks to remains entirely relevant today.
Following the bleak evaluation of the foreseeable future insofar as he sees it, Toffler then speaks to the positive benefits and revelations that change is capable of producing. His case for the essential nature of change is well put though, at best, merely levels the scale between the pros and cons of our collective future.
The final bit Toffler falls to a slightly more speculative but entirely theoretical tone in which he discusses some of his own potential solutions to mitigating the worst case social scenarios first presented and to the essential tasks he deemed necessary for our successful, albeit inevitable, march forward in time.
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addressed through their functional and affective aspects rather than broad speculation over the physical forms and precise implementations to which they are to take. For a book written in 1970, there’s still plenty of relevant information in here to think about.Toffler begins by giving us a broad overview of the state of contemporary society as it stood just as the USA’s golden age was coming to a close. Much of the initial chapters provide overviews of the sociological and psychosocial viewpoints of an uprooted and hyperactive tech-enabled “technosociety” (one of a few dated terms). Touching on the subjects of alienation, grounding, values and belief systems, a la carte lifestyles, political representation and knowledge, Toffler leaves no stone unturned as he exposes to us to the stark realities of the social dysfunction already well underway at the time of publication. Though it paints a rather bleak image of the future, much of what he speaks to remains entirely relevant today.
Following the bleak evaluation of the foreseeable future insofar as he sees it, Toffler then speaks to the positive benefits and revelations that change is capable of producing. His case for the essential nature of change is well put though, at best, merely levels the scale between the pros and cons of our collective future.
The final bit Toffler falls to a slightly more speculative but entirely theoretical tone in which he discusses some of his own potential solutions to mitigating the worst case social scenarios first presented and to the essential tasks he deemed necessary for our successful, albeit inevitable, march forward in time.
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LibraryThing member RajivC
If Alvin Toffler had authored this book in 2020, I may have dismissed this as a rant, and there are many people these days who are ranting about things like social media with all its attendant problems.
However, he wrote this book in 1970, and many of the things that he describes have come to pass.
It is scary to note that this book was so prescient. It was a book that created shock waves at the time that it was published. It is a book to read even now, for its timely warning of what can happen to us if we are not on our guard.
50 years on, it is still relevant.
However, he wrote this book in 1970, and many of the things that he describes have come to pass.
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It is scary to note that this book was so prescient. It was a book that created shock waves at the time that it was published. It is a book to read even now, for its timely warning of what can happen to us if we are not on our guard.
50 years on, it is still relevant.
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LibraryThing member Borg-mx5
An interesting premise. Technology advances faster than we can adapt to it. Many of the predictions in this book failed to come to fruition. Still an interesting read.
LibraryThing member BraveKelso
Interesting, engaging but nonsense.
LibraryThing member disarmadillo
Cram-packed with observations and extrapolations about coping with the increasing pace of change in society.
LibraryThing member aegossman
This book is dated in the BEST of ways! One day it would be amazing to show this book to my son, and explain to him some of the cultural things I have gleamed from my parents, about how life was like when Nixon was president... and to read this book from someone in that time, where he is talking
I read Revolutionary Wealth a while ago and it was good... but this is a beautiful time capsule.
Very secular, but he doesn't pretend to be theological (though Harvey Cox does have a cameo!)
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about things I am thinking about in my time, like gay marriage and how things have little value any more, is astounding! I read Revolutionary Wealth a while ago and it was good... but this is a beautiful time capsule.
Very secular, but he doesn't pretend to be theological (though Harvey Cox does have a cameo!)
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LibraryThing member Karatu
Very well known book about the future seen from the aspect of the 1970s
Subjects
Language
Original publication date
1970
ISBN
0553146971 / 9780553146974