Customer Reviews

The Third Wave: The Classic Study of Tomorrow

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Perhaps the reason that Alvin Toffler's classic book feels so relevant some 25 years after its initial publication is the fact that he wrote it in a time which, in retrospect, was not so different from our own: The world was trembling before the threat of terrorism embodied, in Toffler's age, by Iranian terrorists, and radical new technologies, in the form of powerful and increasingly affordable computers, were drastically altering business and society. But probably, the book resonates simply because he was right about almost everything. For that reason, we from getAbstract recommend this book as a basic requirement for any professional.

I was recommended this book by a collegue. This is a very influencial book in terms of 'future thinking'. I'm told that one should read Future Shock first, but I started w/ Third Wave and managed along just fine.

As was stated by another reviewer, it shouldn't be a must-read b/c it requires vast patience at times to get through tome of information he writes about the first two "waves", but it is worth-while checking out if you're interested in seeing how someone in 1980 could have accurately predicted many events in the past 20 years.

Being 22, this book did open my eyes quite a bit though, and I've bought several copies to give to friends b/c it was pretty influencial to me.

I decided to reread this book after 20 years to see how accurately it represented the experiences of the past 20 years. How nice a surprise I received when I found that the broad themes were beautifully portrayed against the background of the prior agricultural and industrial economies. This long term perspective made the articulation of the future vision clearer.

Particularly impressive in retrospect is the description of a forecast for mass customized products. The customer "will become so integrated into the production process that we find it . . . difficult to tell . . . who is the producer." One might be reading about someone ordering a computer on the Dell Web site.

Almost equally impressive is the appreciation of how electronic connections will establish horizontal connections. "Even a partial shift towards the electronic office will be enough to trigger an eruption of social, psychological, and economic consequences." "It promises to restructure all human relationships and roles in the office as well."

Key insights related to:

(1) Companies needing to take on full responsibility for the consequences of their actions on society and the environment;

(2) Companies becoming much more important social institutions of change;

(3) Information moving to the center of major decisions;

(4) Government spreading its influence so that business and politics become inextricably entwined; and

(5) Institutional ethics coming to more closely reflect social ethics.

In fact, this is the first book I have located that sees the business organization as the critical institution in making ecological, moral, political, racial, sexual and social change, as well as the usual transactional ones.

The fundamental vision of humanity as seeking a more appropriate civilization that is built around individual choice in coordinating social interests is a remarkably accurate description of the evolution of the free market democracies over the last 20 years.

Realizing how hard it is to forecast anything, one comes away with a remarkable appreciation for Alvin Toffler's fundamental estimation of human potential. He took that understanding, tied technology to it, and found the answer quite well.

After enjoying this remarkable book (for the first time or) again, I encourage you to consider how these same human characteristics will take us forward in the future. How can you facilitate this felicitous development?

Make your actions and those you cooperate in serve everyone's best interests!

Toffler's Third Wave uses a bizarre expression of Marxist theory to interpret the obvious: that societies differ in their stages of development and progress in ways that put them in conflict. Readers would have been better served had he condensed the many hundreds of pages into a short story or op-ed article. The analysis is shallow.

....by the Tofflers' Wave theory, which makes a lot of sense of very disparate historical and contemporary movements. The Tofflers have a fine intuitive grasp of the psychohistorical dynamics that inform many different realms: economic, political, military...well worth reading, though a bit rah-rah in places (I don't quite share their optimism that the Third Wave will make everything better...but then I'm a counselor who has seen a lot).

Third wave keeps multidimensional perspectives Its for every human being, to read: students, teachers, Doctors, Engineers, Lawyers,sociologist, Economist,IT managers, sales personnels, and whosever can read and understand this Bible.

This book is one that makes you hit your head and say "Why did'nt I see that". This should be required reading for anyone in management or in the IT field. It brings everything into focus as to why things are happening. I was amazed at the keen perception the author has. This is a must read. Worth every penny.

I've finished this book last year. For me I need a lot of time and peaceful moment to read this book. To actually think along. Tofler give the reader trend and fact of what will happen for the next period in our lives. He began with the historic past and the situation now. and provide the reader some idea and evidence for the thing which will happen in his opinion. Some change is inevitable. Many information in this book will take you to another side of your thought. I will not comment whether I beleive him. But one thing I need to hi-light here is that I love reading this book. The book which contain a lot of information and trend which gives you other view to the future-world. the reader themselves are the people to judge whether they should believe.

Change is inevitable and we see how fast things have been changing. Alvin Toffler's book is in fact a very good reference for developing countries. The book briefly tells what to do in order to keep up with 'information producing countries'.

The book was published in the the early 1980's. The situations and examples given by Toffoler , though excellent, cannot be well appreciated by us as they seem out of palce in current times. However we must give Tofler his due for his predictions of the future. Even back in the 1980's ,when he wrote the book, he has rightly predicted the break up the USSR and emergence of the 'EURO'. I would'nt recommend this book as a "must read", but anyone with a literary interest and the patience must invest in this book.