New York

ALVIN Toffler, the US author whose visions of accelerating social change guided Chinese leaders, American politicians and business moguls through the best-selling books Future Shock and The Third Wave, has died. He was 87. He died on June 27 at his home in Los Angeles, according to Toffler Associates Inc, the Reston, Virginia-based consulting firm he co-founded with his wife, Heidi Toffler. No cause was given.

Toffler wrote more than a dozen books charting the cultural shift from manufacturing-based economies to those driven by knowledge and data in the 20th century. Working with his wife, Toffler predicted the unfolding of what he coined "the Information Age" and became a guru of sorts to world statesmen.