Listen to Alvin Toffler’s “Possibilities, Not Predictions” interview for NPR

Forty years ago, America was gripped by Future Shock. It was a book, published in July of 1970 — but it was also an idea.

It was the notion that life was changing faster and faster — in everything from technology to family structure to politics. People were moving more, throwing away their belongings sooner and having to adapt more often to new kinds of work.

The result was a kind of culture shock of the future — future shock.

The book was, in the publishing industry phrase of the time, a “runaway best-seller.” It sold more than 5 million copies in the U.S., and untold more millions overseas, especially in Asia. The author, Alvin Toffler, was a reporter-turned-futurist from New York. He says the scale of his book’s success came as a shock to him and his wife and collaborator, Heidi Toffler.

Alvin Toffler’s talks about the 40th anniversary of the book on the effect of rapid change holds insights into the present.

Possibilities, Not Predictions

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About Alvin Tofler

Alvin Toffler (October 4, 1928 – June 27, 2016) was an American writer, futurist, and businessman known for his works discussing modern technologies, including the digital revolution and the communication revolution, with emphasis on their effects on cultures worldwide. He is regarded as one of the world’s outstanding futurists.

Toffler was an associate editor of Fortune magazine. In his early works he focused on technology and its impact, which he termed “information overload.” In 1970 his first major book about the future, Future Shock, became a worldwide best-seller and has sold over 6 million copies.

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

He founded Toffler Associates, a management consulting company, and was a visiting scholar at the Russell Sage Foundation, visiting professor at Cornell University, faculty member of the New School for Social Research, a White House correspondent, and a business consultant.

via Futurist 40 Years Later: Possibilities, Not Predictions : NPR.