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Alvin Toffler and Heidi Toffler: War and Anti-War: Making Sense of Today's Global Chaos (Válka a antiválka. Jak porozumet dnesnímu globálnímu chaosu) Praha: Dokorán and Argo, 2002, 303 pages, ISBN: 80-86569-16-0 (Dokorán), ISBN: 80-7203-445-6 (Argo).
Dystopian fiction or plausible assumption? In War and Anti-War Alvin and Heidi Toffler signal the developments in the trends of future wars, based on the core idea that the character of war reflects the organisation of economic activity within the warring parties. Readers are shown how particular forms of war correspond with the way mankind creates wealth. Since the boundaries between science fiction and technological progress are perpetually diminishing, War and Anti-War purveys something for both dystopia admirers and military strategists alike.
This work, first published in 1993, begins with a brief depiction of ancient warfare, and then provides an insight into the nature of wars after the effects of the industrial revolution, covering idiosyncrasies like "massification". FoIlowing this, the major part of the book examines the possible nature of future warfare. It contains an immense amount of factual information and inspiring discourses on the evolution of warfare and business as they enter the "cognilive age". Furthermore, it provides a validation of Alvin Toffler's theory of a three-way collision of agrarian, industrial, and post-industrial societies, as laid-out in The Third Wave (1980).
In the authors' opinion, the human race has seen three significant shifts or "waves" in the course of societal advancement. The representative characteristic of pre-industrial wars is the immediate, direct fight. This "first wave" began during the ancient agricultural revolution, which replaced the first "hunter-gatherer" cultures. Later, in the era of mass production heralded by the industrial revolution, the focus on the battlefield shifted to mass destruction, with bombs as the central actors. In its final stage, this "second wave" was accompanied by the omnipresent threat of nuclear annihilation. GradualIy moving away from the industrial patterns of mass-warfare, those countries which reached the peak of industrialisation (the USA, Japan, and western Europe) are now on the edge of the "third wave", epitomised by the computer. However, the authors argue that the transition from the industrial era to the information age, with its own specific economy and even family structures, is still far from complete. Operation Desert Storm is...