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 what was originally just a trilogy that was continued with
Powershift Knowledge, Wealth and Violence at the Edge of the 21st Century in 1990. A new addition
Revolutionary Wealth was published, however, in 2006 and may be considered as a major expansion of
The Third Wave.
Toffler's book describes the transition in developed countries from Industrial Age society, which he calls the "Second Wave", to Information Age "Third Wave" society.
In the book Toffler describes three types of societies, based on the concept of 'waves' - each wave pushes the older societies and cultures aside.
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.
