Powershift

Book excerpt: Alvin Toffler’s Future Shock and The Third Wave are among the most influential books of our time. Now, in Powershift, he brings to a climax the ideas set forth in his previous works to offer a stunning vision of the future that will change your life. In Powershift, Toffler argues that while headlines focus on shifts of power at the global level, equally significant shifts are taking place in the everyday world we all inhabit—the world of supermarkets and hospitals, banks and business offices, television and telephones, politics and personal life. The very nature of power is changing under our eyes. Powershift maps the “info-wars” of tomorrow and outlines a new system of wealth creation based on individualism, innovation, and information. As old political antagonisms fade, Toffler identifies where the next, far more important world division will arise—not between East and West or North and South, but between the “fast” and the “slow.” In Powershift, Alvin Toffler has formulated the deepest, most comprehensive synthesis yet written about the civilization of the twenty-first century. It is one of the most important books you will ever read. Praise for Powershift “[A] sweeping synthesis . . . by placing the accelerated changes of our current information age in the larger perspective of history, Mr. Toffler helps us to face the future with less wariness and more understanding.”—The New York Times Book Review “An insightful guide to a bewildering present and a frightening future . . . thought-provoking on every page.”—Newsday