Future Shock author Alvin Toffler dead at 87

ALVIN Toffler, whose bestseller Future Shock anticipated the transformations brought about by the rise of digital technology, has died aged 87.

Alvin Toffler (pictured here in 1998) wrote about the potentially alienating effects of rapid technological advancement in Future Shock. Picture: AP Photo/Paul Sakuma

ALVIN Toffler, a guru of the post-industrial age whose million-selling Future Shock and other books anticipated the disruptions and transformations brought about by the rise of digital technology, has died aged 87.

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

One of the world’s most famous “futurists,” Toffler was far from alone in seeing see the economy shift from the industrial age to the information age.

But few were more effective at popularising 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.

My favourite #AlvinToffler quote pic.twitter.com/Zw1QoURAC8

— annie auerbach (@annieauerbach) June 29, 2016

Change is not merely necessary to life, it is life. - Alvin Toffler #Quote pic.twitter.com/Zth9Ipbr2M

— Candace Plattor (@candaceplattor) June 20, 2016

Originally published as Future Shock author Alvin Toffler dead at 87