Alvin Toffler(1928-2016)

A journalist turned futurist, or speculative sociologist, Toffler invented the term "future shock" to describe "the dizzying disorientation brought on by the premature arrival of the future." His 1970 book, "Future Shoc", was on the bestseller list, in its hardcover edition and later as a Bantam paperback, for a total of 78 weeks. A movie fan and amateur pilot, he also wrote the books "The Third Wave" (Morrow, 1980), "The Adaptive Corporation" (McGraw-Hill, 1985), "Powershift: Knowledge, Wealth, and Violence at the Edge of the 21st Century" (Bantam, 1990), "War and Anti-War: Survival at the Dawn of the 21st Century" (Little, Brown, 1993), and "Creating a New Civilization: the Politics of the Third Wave" (Turner, 1995).

I coined the term future shock to describe the shattering stress and disorientation that we induce in individuals by subjecting them to too much change in too short a time. Fascinated by this concept, I spent the next five years visiting scores of universities, research centers, laboratories, and government agencies, reading countless articles and scientific papers, and interviewing literally hundreds of experts on different aspects of change, coping behavior, and the future.