Future Shock Future Shock is a book written by the sociologist and futurologist Alvin Toffler in 1970. The book has sold over 6 million copies and has been widely translated. Future shock is also a term for a certain psychological state of individuals and entire societies, introduced by Toffler in his book of the same name. Toffler's shortest definition of future shock is a personal perception of " too much change in too short a period of time". The concept of future shock bears resemblance to the late 20th/early 21st century concept of "the technological singularity", and may have been influenced by Kuhn's concept of a technological paradigm shift.

The Third Wave
The Third Wave is a book published in 1980 by Alvin Toffler. It is the sequel to Future Shock, published in 1970, and the second in a trilogy that was completed with Powershift in 1990.

The transition from the earlier hunter-gatherer societies to the agrarian and agricultural societies is also known as the Neolithic Revolution. This coincides with the transition from the Mesolithic era to the Neolithic era (respectively, the Middle and Late Stone Age). The transition from the Paleolithic to the Mesolithic (Early to Middle Stone Age), in turn, largely coincides with the emergence of the modern Homo sapiens from earlier, related archaic human species.

Nearly extinct in the present-day world, hunter-gatherer societies (which one might term the "0th Wave" societies) are not recognized in Toffler's scheme. Similarly, in the classical Three-age system, distinctions are recognized between the Stone Age era Bronze Age, Iron Age, the boundary between the latter two c. 1300-1200 BC being as dramatic as that demarcating Toffler's waves. None of these phases are clearly recognized in the Toffler scheme, in part due to the prevalence of the latter phase amongst present-day pre-industrial societies.

The transition from Toffler's First Wave and Second Wave is sometimes also recognized as a transition from the Iron Age to the Steel Age. At present, there is no clear delineation of the latest transition, though sometimes the term Post-industrial society, originating from Daniel Bell, is used, in addition to Toffler's "Third Wave society".

Powershift
Toffler gives a new name ( Powershift) to the rapidly unfolding events of the last decades and paints a captivating picture of the future. Powershift completes a monumental trilogy on change in our times, persuasively employing a cornucopia of examples on how information and technology have transformed business, politics, and society in general. This work discusses new ways of thinking about change and how it causes the abrupt transformation of an entire society form the central theme. Within the context of a new theory of social power, Powershift focuses on knowledge and its changing role as manifested in the radical transformations in business, the economy, politics, and global affairs.

The Paths Of History
This is a broad and ambitious study of the entire history of humanity which takes as its point of departure Marx’s theory of social evolution. However, Professor Diakonoff’s theory of world history differs from Marx’s in a number of ways. Firstly he has expanded Marx’s five stages of development to eight. Secondly he denies that social evolution necessarily implies progress and shows how ‘each progress is simultaneously a regress’, and thirdly he demonstrates that the transition from one stage to another is not necessarily marked by social conflict and that sometimes this is achieved peacefully and gracefully. As the book moves through these various stages, the reader is drawn into a remarkable and thought-provoking study of the process of the history of the human race which focuses on the wide range of factors (economic, social, military-technological, and socio-pyschological) which have influenced our development from palaeolithic times to the present day.

• Short, concise analysis of the development of mankind from palaeolithic times to the present day • Examines all aspects of our development (e.g. social, political, economic, socio-psychological, technological, ethical) • Bold in coverage with echoes of Marx, Toynbee and other seminal world-historical authors