Heidi Toffler, long-unheralded half of futurist writing team, dies at 89
Heidi Toffler, who partnered with her husband, Alvin Toffler, to write best-selling books about the future of human society in an age of rapid technological change, but whose contributions as a researcher and editor remained largely unsung until her husband formally outed her as a co-author, died Feb. 6 at her home in Los Angeles. She was 89.
The death was announced by their consulting firm, Toffler Associates, which did not give a cause.
United in a marital and intellectual partnership for more than six decades, the Tofflers described themselves as “a one-family think tank,” whose long-running discussions (and frequent arguments) on economics, technology, war and the environment formed the seeds of about a dozen futurist books. Their aim, they often said, was not to predict the future but to synthesize events and thus shine a light on what might come next.
“We are pattern detectors,” Alvin Toffler told The New York Times in 1995. Everyone, he added, makes “assumptions about what is going to happen after this moment. The difference between us and others is that most people make these suppositions unconsciously. We do it deliberately — and build models.”
The Tofflers’ first book, 1970’s “Future Shock,” anticipated the emergence of the personal computer, cable television, the internet and “that peculiarly super-industrial dilemma: overchoice,” as evident when consumers are confronted by dozens of varieties of toothpaste in the aisles of a superstore.
“Future Shock” — its title referred to a sense of “too much change in too short a period of time” — sold millions of copies, was translated into dozens of languages and spawned two follow-ups, “The Third Wave” (1980) and “Powershift” (1990), which featured detailed prognostications on cloning, teleworking and virtual reality.
Yet each book was credited to just one author, Alvin Toffler. While Heidi Toffler accompanied her husband on book tours and joined him for interviews, the extent of her contributions remained little known before the publication of “Powershift.”
“This entire trilogy, from inception to completion, has had an uncredited co-author,” Alvin wrote in the preface. “It is the combined work of two minds, not just one, although I have done the actual writing and have accepted the plaudits and criticisms for both of us.”
“Whatever the faults of this trilogy,” he added, “they would have been far more serious without her skeptical intelligence, her intellectual insight, keen editorial sense, and general good judgment about ideas and people alike. She has contributed not merely to afterthe-fact polishing but to the formulation of the underlying models on which the works are based . ... I feel that the trilogy is as much hers as mine.”
The Tofflers offered few precise explanations for why credit was apportioned the way it was, with Alvin Toffler saying his wife declined to be listed on book jackets “out of integrity, modesty and love.” That changed, beginning in 1993, when she was listed as a co-author on “War and Anti-War: Survival at the Dawn of the 21st Century,” the first of several books that featured both Tofflers on the cover.