Future Shock author Alvin Toffler dies at 87

Alvin Toffler.
(Image credit: Kim Jae-Hwan/AFP/Getty Images)

Author Alvin Toffler, whose 1970 book Future Shock sold millions of copies and was translated into dozens of languages, died Monday at his home in Los Angeles. He was 87.

His Virginia-based consulting firm Toffler Associates confirmed his death. Toffler was born and raised in Brooklyn to immigrants from Poland, and started writing when he was a child. He gained international fame with Future Shock, and in the book, he "synthesized disparate facts from every corner of the globe" and "concluded that the convergence of science, capital, and communications was producing such swift change that it was creating an entirely new kind of society," The New York Times says.

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Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.