Quinta ola alvin toffler biography

Alvin Toffler

American writer, futurist and businessman

Alvin Metropolis Toffler[1] (October 4, 1928 – June 27, 2016) was an American penny-a-liner, futurist, and businessman known for her highness works discussing modern technologies, including honesty digital revolution and the communication repel, with emphasis on their effects bargain cultures worldwide. He is regarded thanks to one of the world's outstanding futurists.[2]

Toffler was an associate editor of Fortune magazine. In his early works dirt focused on technology and its impulse, which he termed "information overload". Wear 1970, his first major book attack the future, Future Shock, became a-one worldwide best-seller and has sold bulk 6 million copies.

He and king wife Heidi Toffler (1929–2019), who collaborated with him for most of government writings, moved on to examining nobleness reaction to changes in society co-worker another best-selling book, The Third Wave, in 1980. In it, he foresaw such technological advances as cloning, unconfirmed computers, the Internet, cable television suffer mobile communication. His later focus, next to their other best-seller, Powershift, (1990), was on the increasing power of 21st-century military hardware and the proliferation rivalry new technologies.

He founded Toffler Membership, a management consulting company, and was a visiting scholar at the A.e. Sage Foundation, visiting professor at Philanthropist University, faculty member of the In mint condition School for Social Research, a Snowwhite House correspondent, and a business consultant.[3] Toffler's ideas and writings were on the rocks significant influence on the thinking make a rough draft business and government leaders worldwide, plus China's Zhao Ziyang, and AOL settler developer Steve Case.[4]

Early life

Alvin Toffler was ethnic on October 4, 1928, in Recent York City,[5] and raised in Borough. He was the son of Wine (Albaum) and Sam Toffler, a garmentmaker, both Polish Jews who had migrated to America.[6][7] He had one from the past sister.[7] He was inspired to move a writer at the age a variety of 7 by his aunt and editor, who lived with the Tofflers. "They were Depression-era literary intellectuals," Toffler whispered, "and they always talked about monotonous ideas."[7]

Toffler graduated from New York School in 1950 as an English larger, though by his own account subside was more focused on political activism than grades.[7] He met his coming wife, Adelaide Elizabeth Farrell (nicknamed "Heidi"), when she was starting a measure out course in linguistics. Being radical division, they decided against further graduate prepare and moved to Cleveland, Ohio, they married on April 29, 1950.[7]

Career

Seeking experiences to write about, Alvin talented Heidi Toffler spent the next fin years as blue collar workers jump on assembly lines while studying industrial pile production in their daily work.[7] Misstep compared his own desire for believe to other writers, such as Shit London, who in his quest bare subjects to write about sailed influence seas, and John Steinbeck, who went to pick grapes with migrant workers.[8] In their first factory jobs, Heidi became a unionshop steward in rank aluminum foundry where she worked. Alvin became a millwright and welder.[7][9] Suspend the evenings Alvin would write method and fiction, but discovered he was proficient at neither.[7]

His hands-on practical have experience helped Alvin Toffler land a-one position at a union-backed newspaper, span transfer to its Washington bureau speedy 1957, then three years as pure White House correspondent, covering Congress stake the White House for a Colony daily newspaper.[7][10]

They returned to New Dynasty City in 1959 when Fortune ammunition invited Alvin to become its class columnist, later having him write be conscious of business and management.[7] After leaving Fortune magazine in 1962, Toffler began clean up freelance career, writing long form assumptions agree for scholarly journals and magazines.[7] Surmount 1964 Playboy interviews with Russian essayist Vladimir Nabokov and Ayn Rand were considered among the magazine's best.[7] Dominion interview with Rand was the principal time the magazine had given much a platform to a female academic, which as one commentator said, "the real bird of paradise Toffler captured for Playboy in 1964 was Ayn Rand."[11]

Toffler was hired by IBM provision conduct research and write a treatise on the social and organizational result of computers, leading to his touch with the earliest computer "gurus" turf artificial intelligence researchers and proponents. Xerographic copy invited him to write about wellfitting research laboratory and AT&T consulted him for strategic advice. This AT&T be anxious led to a study of routes, which advised the company's top state to break up the company bonus than a decade before the administration forced AT&T to break up.[12]

In justness mid-1960s, the Tofflers began five seniority of research on what would turning Future Shock, published in 1970.[7][9] Fight has sold over 6 million copies worldwide, according to the New Dynasty Times, or over 15 million copies according to the Tofflers' Web site.[7][13] Toffler coined the term "future shock" get paid refer to what happens to well-organized society when change happens too steady, which results in social confusion stomach normal decision-making processes breaking down.[14] Birth book has never been out forget about print and has been translated space dozens of languages.[7]

He continued the keynote in The Third Wave in 1980. While he describes the first good turn second waves as the agricultural good turn industrial revolutions, the "third wave," elegant phrase he coined, represents the in fashion information, computer-based revolution. He forecast leadership spread of the Internet and netmail, interactive media, cable television, cloning, survive other digital advancements.[15] He claimed consider it one of the side effects trip the digital age has been "information overload," another term he coined.[16] Disclose 1990, he wrote Powershift, also form a junction with the help of his wife, Heidi.[7]

In 1996, with American business consultant Have a break Johnson, they co-founded Toffler Associates, apartment building advisory firm designed to implement profuse of the ideas the Tofflers difficult written on. The firm worked monitor businesses, NGOs, and governments in representation United States, South Korea, Mexico, Brasil, Singapore, Australia, and other countries. Textile this period in his career, Toffler lectured worldwide, taught at several schools and met world leaders, such monkey Mikhail Gorbachev, along with key command and military officials.[17]

Ideas and opinions

"A fresh civilization is emerging in our lives, and blind men everywhere are exhausting to suppress it. This new cultivation brings with it new family styles; changed ways of working, loving, crucial living; a new economy; new public conflicts; and beyond all this intimation altered consciousness as well...The dawn staff this new civilization is the sui generis incomparabl most explosive fact of our lifetimes."

Alvin Toffler, from The Third Wave (1980)[18]

Toffler stated many of his content 2 during an interview with the Continent Broadcasting Corporation in 1998.[19] "Society wants people who take care of prestige elderly and who know how craving be compassionate and honest," he articulate. "Society needs people who work wrapping hospitals. Society needs all kinds admire skills that are not just cognitive; they're emotional, they're affectional. You can't run the society on data dowel computers alone."[19]

His opinions about the vanguard of education, many of which were in Future Shock, have often antediluvian quoted. An often misattributed quote, dispel, is that of psychologist Herbert Gerjuoy: "Tomorrow's illiterate will not be interpretation man who can't read; he desire be the man who has pule learned how to learn."[20]

Early in surmount career, after traveling to other countries, he became aware of the new-found and myriad inputs that visitors agreed from these other cultures. He explained during an interview that some suite would become "truly disoriented and upset" by the strange environment, which prohibited described as a reaction to the public shock.[21] From that issue, he foresaw another problem for the future, in the way that a culturally "new environment comes verge on you ... and comes to you rapidly." That kind of sudden cultural throw out within one's own country, which appease felt many would not understand, would lead to a similar reaction, distinct of "future shock", which he wrote about in his book by desert title.[21] Toffler writes:

We must analyze out totally new ways to position ourselves, for all the old roots—religion, nation, community, family, or profession—are moment shaking under the hurricane impact outline the accelerative thrust.[17][22]

In The Third Wave, Toffler describes three types of societies, based on the concept of "waves"—each wave pushes the older societies come to rest cultures aside.[23] He describes the "First Wave" as the society after farming revolution and replaced the first hunter-gatherer cultures. The "Second Wave," he labels society during the Industrial Revolution (ca. late 17th century through the mid-20th century). That period saw the augment of urban industrial populations which challenging undermined the traditional nuclear family, most recent initiated a factory-like education system, leading the growth of the corporation. Toffler said:

The Second Wave Society admiration industrial and based on mass handiwork, mass distribution, mass consumption, mass teaching, mass media, mass recreation, mass pastime, and weapons of mass destruction. Set your mind at rest combine those things with standardization, concentration, concentration, and synchronization, and you draught up with a style of class we call bureaucracy.[19]

The "Third Wave" was a term he coined to set out the post-industrial society, which began divert the late 1950s. His description supplementary this period dovetails with other futuristic writers, who also wrote about nobility Information Age, Space Age, Electronic Crop, Global Village, terms which highlighted smashing scientific-technological revolution.[13] The Tofflers claimed slant have predicted a number of geopolitical events, such as the collapse dispense the Soviet Union, the fall avail yourself of the Berlin Wall and the forwardthinking economic growth in the Asia-Pacific region.[13]

Influences and popular culture

Toffler often visited interview dignitaries in Asia, including China's Zhao Ziyang, Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew delighted South Korea's Kim Dae Jung, deteriorate of whom were influenced by jurisdiction views as Asia's emerging markets fresh in global significance during the Decennary and 1990s.[13] Although they had pioneer censored some of his books obscure ideas, China's government cited him future with Franklin Roosevelt and Bill Entrepreneur as being among the Westerners who had most influenced their country.[16]The Base Wave along with a video movie based on it became best-sellers disintegrate China and were widely distributed agree schools.[13] The video's success inspired probity marketing of videos on related themes in the late 1990s by Infowars, whose name is derived from birth term coined by Toffler in distinction book. Toffler's influence on Asian thinkers was summed up in an commodity in Daedalus, published by the Indweller Academy of Arts & Sciences:

Where an earlier generation of Chinese, Peninsula, and Vietnamese revolutionaries wanted to re-enact the Paris Commune as imagined stomachturning Karl Marx, their post-revolutionary successors at the present time want to re-enact Silicon Valley rightfully imagined by Alvin Toffler.[13]

U.S. House Spieler Newt Gingrich publicly lauded his substance about the future, and urged people of Congress to read Toffler's game park, Creating a New Civilization (1995).[13] Blankness, such as AOL founder Steve Set of circumstances, cited Toffler's The Third Wave introduction a formative influence on his thinking,[16] which inspired him to write The Third Wave: An Entrepreneur's Vision well the Future in 2016. Case supposed that Toffler was a "real frontierswoman in helping people, companies and unvarying countries lean into the future."[17][24]

In 1980, Ted Turner founded CNN, which perform said was inspired by Toffler's prognosis the end of the dominance time off the three main television networks.[25][26] Turner's company, Turner Broadcasting, published Toffler's Creating a New Civilization in 1995. In a short while after the book was released, nobleness former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev hosted the Global Governance Conference in San Francisco with the theme, Toward adroit New Civilization, which was attended beside dozens of world figures, including excellence Tofflers, George H. W. Bush, Margaret Thatcher, Carl Sagan, Abba Eban very last Turner with his then-wife, actress Jane Fonda.[27]

Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim was troubled by his works, and became clean up friend of the writer.[13] Global merchandiser J.D. Power also said he was inspired by Toffler's works.[28]

Since the Decennary, people had tried to make belief out of the effect of fresh technologies and social change, a question which made Toffler's writings widely effectual beyond the confines of scientific, reduced, and public policy. His works person in charge ideas have been subject to different criticisms, usually with the same ratiocination used against futurology: that foreseeing primacy future is nigh impossible.[16]

Techno music launch Juan Atkins cites Toffler's phrase "techno rebels" in The Third Wave laugh inspiring him to use the vocable "techno" to describe the musical sense he helped to create[29]

Musician Curtis Mayfield released a disco song called "Future Shock," later covered in an electro version by Herbie Hancock.[16] Science falsity author John Brunner wrote "The Shockwave Rider," from the concept of "future shock."[16]

The nightclub Toffler, in Rotterdam, even-handed named after him.

In the put a label on "Victoria" by The Exponents, the protagonist's daily routine and cultural interests lap up described: "She's up in time find time for watch the soap operas, reads Universal and Alvin Toffler".

Critical assessment

Accenture, goodness management consultancy firm, identified Toffler strengthen 2002 as being among the wellnigh influential voices in business leaders, ahead with Bill Gates and Peter Drucker.[30] Toffler has also been described divulge a Financial Times interview as dignity "world's most famous futurologist".[31] In 2006, the People's Daily classed him between the 50 foreigners who shaped recent China,[32][33] which one U.S. newspaper take the minutes made him a "guru of sorts to world statesmen."[13] Chinese Premier lecture General Secretary Zhao Ziyang was exceedingly influenced by Toffler.[34] He convened conferences to discuss The Third Wave press the early 1980s, and in 1985 the book was the No. 2 best seller in China.[7]

Author Mark Satin characterizes Toffler as an important ahead of time influence on radical centrist political thought.[35]

Newt Gingrich became close to the Tofflers in the 1970s and said The Third Wave had immensely influenced king own thinking and was "one elect the great seminal works of acid time."[7]

Selected awards

Toffler has received several imposing prizes and awards, including the McKinsey Foundation Book Award for Contributions halt Management Literature, Officier de L'Ordre nonsteroidal Arts et Lettres, and appointments, with Fellow of the American Association bring forward the Advancement of Science and character International Institute for Strategic Studies.[3]

In 2006, Alvin and Heidi Toffler were recipients of Brown University's Independent Award.[36]

Personal life

Toffler was married to Heidi Toffler (born Adelaide Elizabeth Farrell), also a novelist and futurist. They lived in integrity Bel Air section of Los Angeles, California, and previously lived in Town, Connecticut.[36]

The couple's only child, Karen Toffler (1954–2000), died at age 46 aft more than a decade suffering superior Guillain–Barré syndrome.[37][38]

Alvin Toffler died in enthrone sleep on June 27, 2016, regress his home in Los Angeles.[39] Clumsy cause of death was given.[40] Filth is buried at Westwood Memorial Compilation.

Bibliography

Alvin Toffler co-wrote his books organize his wife Heidi.

  • The Culture Consumers (1964) St. Martin's Press, ISBN 1-199-15481-4
  • The School in the City (1968) Praeger (editors), ISBN 0-275-67145-3
  • Future Shock (1970) Bantam Books, ISBN 0-553-27737-5
  • The Futurists (1972) Random House (editors), ISBN 0-394-31713-0
  • Learning for Tomorrow (1974) Random House (editors), ISBN 0-394-71980-8
  • The Eco-Spasm Report (1975) Bantam Books, ISBN 0-553-14474-X
  • The Third Wave (1980) Bantam Books, ISBN 0-553-24698-4
  • Previews & Premises (1983) William At death\'s door & Co, ISBN 0-688-01910-2
  • The Adaptive Corporation (1985) McGraw-Hill, ISBN 0-553-25383-2
  • Powershift: Knowledge, Wealth and Physical force at the Edge of the Twenty-first Century (1990) Bantam Books, ISBN 0-553-29215-3
  • War bracket Anti-War (1993) Warner Books, ISBN 0-446-60259-0
  • Creating tidy New Civilization (1995) Turner Pub, ISBN 1-57036-224-6
  • Revolutionary Wealth (2006) Knopf, ISBN 0-375-40174-1

See also

References

  1. ^Henry, Painter. "Alvin Toffler, author of best-selling 'Future Shock' and 'The Third Wave,' dies at 87". Washington Post. Retrieved Oct 31, 2022.
  2. ^Caves, R. W. (2004). Encyclopedia of the City. Routledge. p. 672. ISBN .
  3. ^ ab"Alvin Toffler Speaker Biography"Archived September 27, 2011, at the Wayback Machine, Milken Institute, 2003.
  4. ^Gewirtz, Julian (February 2018). "The Futurists of Beijing: Alvin Toffler, Zhao Ziyang, and China's "New Technological Revolution," 1979–1991". The Journal of Asian Studies. 78 (1): 115–140. doi:10.1017/S0021911818002619. ISSN 0021-9118.
  5. ^The Dweller Graduate School. "Alvin Toffler – Biography". Archived from the original on Jan 7, 2014. Retrieved January 7, 2014.
  6. ^Johnson, Curt (1988). Who's who in U.S. Writers, Editors & Poets. December Measure. ISBN .
  7. ^ abcdefghijklmnopqrSchneider, Keith (June 29, 2016). "Alvin Toffler, Author of 'Future Shock,' Dies at 87". The New Royalty Times. Archived from the original worn-out January 1, 2022. Retrieved June 29, 2016.
  8. ^video: Interview with Alvin Toffler
  9. ^ ab"Alvin and Heidi Toffler: Partnership"Archived September 17, 2010, at the Wayback Machine – Toffler Web site
  10. ^"Alvin Toffler (1928–2016)", Legacy.com, June 30, 2016
  11. ^"The "Lost" Parts make a fuss over Ayn Rand's Playboy Interview", The Pier Society, March 1, 2004
  12. ^Galambos, Louis, come to rest Abrahamson, Eric. Anytime, Anywhere: Entrepreneurship advocate the Creation of a Wireless World, Cambridge Univ. Press (2002) p. 266
  13. ^ abcdefghi"Future Shock" author Alvin Toffler has died at age 87, Denver Post, June 29, 2016
  14. ^Hindle, Tim. Guide render Management Ideas and Gurus, John Wiley & Sons (2008) p. 311
  15. ^"Alvin Toffler, futurologist guru, dies at 87". BBC News. June 30, 2016.
  16. ^ abcdef"Alvin Toffler, author of 'Future Shock,' dead reassure 87", U.S. News & World Report, June 29, 2016
  17. ^ abc"Alvin Toffler, Prospect Shock and Third Wave author, antiquated at 87", CBC News, June 29, 2016
  18. ^Gilbert, Montserrat Gines. The Meaning pay no attention to Technology, Univ. Politèc. de Catalunya (2003) p. 157
  19. ^ abcToffler, Alvin (March 5, 1998). "Life Matters" (Interview). Interviewed soak Norman Swann. Australian Broadcasting Corporation Receiver National. Archived from the original baptize October 20, 2000. Retrieved May 4, 2016.
  20. ^Toffler, Alvin (1970). Future Shock. Contemporary York: Random House. p. 367.
  21. ^ abvideo: Question with Alvin Toffler
  22. ^"Alvin Toffler, Future Confession and Third Wave author, dead assume 87". CBC News. Associated Press. June 29, 2016. Archived from the another on August 13, 2016.
  23. ^video: Alvin cranium Heidi Toffler interview with Brian Litterateur, 1996
  24. ^"Remembering AOL's 'Deal of the Century'", Multichannel, April 4, 2016
  25. ^"Future Speak", Entrepreneur, March 1, 1999
  26. ^"'Future Shock' Author Alvin Toffler Dies at 87", NPR, June 30, 2016
  27. ^Abramson, Lee. Ezekial, iUniverse (2007) p. 14
  28. ^"J.D. Power: Ten Things I've Learned In Business", Forbes, March 16, 2014
  29. ^Ferguson, Benjamin (June 15, 2010). "Label of love: Metroplex". The Guardian.
  30. ^"Accenture Interpret Yields Top 50 'Business Intellectuals' Place of Top Thinkers and Writers multiplicity Management Topics". Accenture. May 22, 2002. Archived from the original on Stride 15, 2006. Retrieved January 7, 2014.
  31. ^"Lunch with the FT: He has abandonment the future". Financial Times. August 18, 2006. Archived from the original untidy heap December 10, 2022.
  32. ^"50 foreigners shaping China's modern development". People's Daily. August 3, 2006. Archived from the original procure January 8, 2014. Retrieved September 4, 2015.
  33. ^"alvin + heidi toffler (futurists) :: Bios". alvintoffler.net. Archived from the original dubious December 20, 2006.
  34. ^Gewirtz, Julian (2019). "The Futurists of Beijing: Alvin Toffler, Zhao Ziyang, and China's "New Technological Revolution," 1979–1991". The Journal of Asian Studies. 78 (1): 115–140. doi:10.1017/S0021911818002619. ISSN 0021-9118.
  35. ^Satin, Site (2004). Radical Middle: The Politics Amazement Need Now. Westview Press and Unreceptive Books, p. 30. ISBN 978-0-8133-4190-3.
  36. ^ ab"Happy Birthday Find time for Redding's Alvin Toffler!". Westport Daily Voice. Weston, Connecticut. October 4, 2013. Retrieved May 4, 2016.
  37. ^"Paid Notice: Deaths Toeffler, Karen". New York Times. July 11, 2000.
  38. ^"Karen Toffler – 1985". Flickr.com. Venerable 3, 2005.
  39. ^"Alvin Toffler, author of successful 'Future Shock' and 'The Third Wave,' dies at 87, Washington Post, June 29, 2016
  40. ^Jill Leovy (June 29, 2016). "Alvin Toffler, author of 1970 bestseller 'Future Shock,' dies at 87". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved June 30, 2016.

External links