Publisher: Turner Publishing, Incorporated
Publication date: 2/15/1995
Edition description: 1st ed
Edition number: 1
Pages: 112
Product dimensions: 5.52 (w) x 8.23 (h) x 0.38 (d)
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
18 of 23 people found the following review helpful
By Prince
Format:Paperback
When I was in my early 20s I read a book called 'The Third Wave' by Alvin Toffler. It completely changed my life. It made clear the things I felt happening in the world and explained them in a way I still carry with me today. I became a Toffler devotee and read everyone of his 1000+ page books. Then in 1995 he wrote a small 200 word book with Newt Gingrich about the future of politics. It was the worse piece of crap I had ever read. It made no sense. It's ideas were vapid and muddled. Someone recently said that Newt is "a stupid guys idea of what a smart person sounds like." I completely agree. Knowledge without ethics, empathy or vision does not make you smart. It makes you dangerous.
6 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Toffler's great book was the first one 'Future Shock'. What came after did not have the newness, and the freshness- and it did not shock.
This work too is a replay of Tofflers' often repeated notion of human development in three great phases, an Agricultural , Industrial and now Information Age. There is truth in this picture but it is far too simplistic and one- dimensional to encompass the realities of our world. Take for instance the Energy question which the Tofflers seemed to feel would have a relatively easy solution when they wrote this book in the early nineties. Here we are well into the first decade of the twenty- first century and the non- renewable fossil fuel resource is causing havoc with Civilization as a whole.
Morever even when there are developments which reenforce the Toffler picture of our living in an 'Information Age' they come in surprising unpredictable ways which raise serious questions on many fronts. The development of the Internet would seem to strengthen Toffler's main idea of our moving into an Information Age Economy, one in which customization, and de- massification are central. Consider the multiplication of Media and of human expression which the Internet has allowed. This would seem to be a kind of consummate proof of the Toffler thesis. Yet look also at the possible 'dumbing down' of the population, at the undermining in certain areas of the integrity of the 'knowledge industry' in the Academy. Consider such political phenomena as the rise of Radical Islam and the way their terrorists make use of 'information age' technology to threaten and attack others.
The Tofflers' view of the Future is too one- sidedly optimistic. And it too in my opinion , 'arrogant' in its assumption that their idea or ideas understand it all.
Their book has some interesting suggestions about what the human future will look like, but they certainly do not 'see it all'- not even the half of it.
This work too is a replay of Tofflers' often repeated notion of human development in three great phases, an Agricultural , Industrial and now Information Age. There is truth in this picture but it is far too simplistic and one- dimensional to encompass the realities of our world. Take for instance the Energy question which the Tofflers seemed to feel would have a relatively easy solution when they wrote this book in the early nineties. Here we are well into the first decade of the twenty- first century and the non- renewable fossil fuel resource is causing havoc with Civilization as a whole.
Morever even when there are developments which reenforce the Toffler picture of our living in an 'Information Age' they come in surprising unpredictable ways which raise serious questions on many fronts. The development of the Internet would seem to strengthen Toffler's main idea of our moving into an Information Age Economy, one in which customization, and de- massification are central. Consider the multiplication of Media and of human expression which the Internet has allowed. This would seem to be a kind of consummate proof of the Toffler thesis. Yet look also at the possible 'dumbing down' of the population, at the undermining in certain areas of the integrity of the 'knowledge industry' in the Academy. Consider such political phenomena as the rise of Radical Islam and the way their terrorists make use of 'information age' technology to threaten and attack others.
The Tofflers' view of the Future is too one- sidedly optimistic. And it too in my opinion , 'arrogant' in its assumption that their idea or ideas understand it all.
Their book has some interesting suggestions about what the human future will look like, but they certainly do not 'see it all'- not even the half of it.
8 of 11 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Hardcover
Speaking as a college student I may not be the best candidate to give a literary critique but I can tell you that this book should be taught to students in our high schools and universities. The predictions made in this book are not merely predictions but rather observations that have already begun in our world. Any educated person can tell that the changes Toffler expects in our world have already begun. Toffler's major principles for the 21st century include: disappearance of anything resembling a factory-based production system, empowering the home rather than society, decentralization of ideas and duties, and the ideal of congruence between the private and public sectors. Once you read this book, you begin to realize how much the world has already changed and how much farther we can progress if not for our "second world" ideals that hold our society back from ultimate progression and discoveries. I recommend that if you love politics as much as I do, buy this book and be amazed!
Most Recent Customer Reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
A historical individual view from reading it 1995 and again in 2013
Read 1st in 1995, re - read this week ( April 2013), they were ahead of their time with this book, A must read to understand the dynamic shifts in politics and power, based upon an... Read more
Published 27 days ago by B. Kane
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Vision And Plan For The Future For Everyone!!!
The title seems a bit grandiose, but the book lives up to its' title and has whet my appetite to read more of Alvin and Heidi Toffler's works. Read more
Published 3 months ago by Manuel Muro
5.0 out of 5 stars
More important today than 1995
As a decades-long follower of the Tofflers and their work, I don't know how I missed this when it was first published! Read more
Published 18 months ago by Edryce A. Reynolds
4.0 out of 5 stars
Practical Applecations of the Third Wave
Based on the ideas presented in Alvin and Heidi Toffler's The Third Wave.
The Tofflers explore possible futures in the Third Wave. Read more
The Tofflers explore possible futures in the Third Wave. Read more
Published on January 21, 2009 by Willis Whitlock
4.0 out of 5 stars
Toffler is a man with a concept looking for a plan
Toffler is a big thinker. His premise in this book as well as in his other books is that just as the agricultural first wave has given way to the second wave industrial age, that... Read more
Published on June 13, 2002 by Eugene A Jewett
2.0 out of 5 stars
Just one Question....HOW?!?
Since I had never read the previous three books maybe I was thrown into the deep-end on this one. I could read and comprehend everything they said, but the failure of the Tofflers... Read more
Published on May 30, 2002 by "player31"
3.0 out of 5 stars
if you're too busy to read THE THIRD WAVE....
...then this might be an option, because it's just a rework and condensation of its predecessor. It also sports an intro written by Newt Gingrich; I have no idea why unless he was... Read more
Published on June 1, 2000 by Craig Chalquist, PhD, author of TERRAPSYCHOLOGY and DEEP CALIFORNIA
5.0 out of 5 stars
Something mean to be happen!
The book, Creating A New Civilization, is really something to me. Without reading Alvin's Future Trilogy, this book provide me a big picture of what the world gonna be. Read more
Published on November 9, 1998
3.0 out of 5 stars
Forecast of the future based on questionable assumption
Authors' Alvin and Heidi Toffler would have readers believe that the world is being carried along by an inevitable tidal force of events known as the 'Third Wave' which, in turn,... Read more
Published on June 20, 1998 by michael jennings
5.0 out of 5 stars
An eye-opener about current turmoil and future possibilities
I didn't read the authors previuos works, so I cannot compare. However, this short volume is an easy read and makes perfect sense. Read more
Published on April 17, 1997
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