Renowned futurist Alvin Toffler dies at age 87

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By Lee Han-soo

Alvin Toffler, American writer and futurist widely acclaimed for publishing books about the changes occurring in society, has died according to Bloomberg news on Wednesday. He was 87.

Toffler published books such as Future Shock, The Third Wave and Revolutionary Wealth, which foresaw civilization shift from a production based economy to knowledge and data based society.

His ideas were valued by world leaders such as the former General Secretary of China, Zhao Ziyang, and former Russian president, Mikhail Gorbachev.

He is widely praised for providing insight about Korea’s unification to the late former President Kim Dae-jung and other South Korean leaders.

Toffler born in 1928 in New York, graduated from New York University, worked as a White House correspondent, a labor columnist for Fortune magazine and later worked at IBM.

He also advised AT&T to break up more than a decade before the government forced the company to break up in 1982.

Toffler is survived by his wife.