“Compact and immensely readable . . . a tour de force. Prepare to be amazed.” — John C. Bogle, Founder and Former CEO, The Vanguard Group“Vital—a cogent, timely journey through the economic history of the modern world.” — Publishers WeeklyIn The Birth of Plenty, William Bernstein, the bestselling author of The Four Pillars of Investing, presents his provocative, highly acclaimed theory of why prosperity has been the engine...

The classic guide to constructing a solid portfolio— with out a financial advisor!“With relatively little effort, you can design and assemble an investment portfolio that, because of its wide diversification and minimal expenses, will prove superior to the most professionally managed accounts. Great intelligence and good luck are not required.”William Bernstein’s commonsense approach to portfolio construction has served investors well during the pa...

“Bernstein has become a guru to a peculiarly ’90s group: well-educated, Internet-powered people intent on investing well—and with minimal ‘help’ from professional Wall Street.”--Robert Barker, BusinessWeekWilliam Bernstein is one of today’s most unlikely financial heroes. A practicing neurologist, he used his self-taught investment knowledge and research to build a popular investor’s website. Now, in the plain-spoken The Intelligent Asset Allocator, he shows...

As recently as a generation or two ago, the lack of financial ability wasn't a handicap for the average person. But in today's world—where most of us have been forced to manage our own investment and retirement portfolios—it has become essential to understand the finer points of our financial life.While the meltdown of 2008–2009 has compounded the complexity of the investment landscape, timeless investment principles can help you navigate even the toughest investment terrain. That's...

Sound, sensible advice from a hero to frustrated investors everywhereWilliam Bernstein's The Four Pillars of Investing gives investors the tools they need to construct top-returning portfolios--without the help of a financial adviser. In a relaxed, nonthreatening style, Dr. Bernstein provides a distinctive blend of market history, investing theory, and behavioral finance, one designed to help every investor become more self-sufficient and make better-infor...

FROM THE BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF THE INTELLIGENT ASSET ALLOCATORPraise for The Birth of Plenty:"Bill Bernstein has given us a compact and immensely readable economic, political, military, and institutional history of our civilization that is a tour de force. Put everything else down. Take a deep breath. Open The Birth of Plenty. And prepare to be amazed.--John C. Bogle, Founder and Former CEO, The V...

A Splendid Exchange tells the epic story of global commerce, from its prehistoric origins to the myriad crises confronting it today. It travels from the sugar rush that brought the British to Jamaica in the seventeenth century to our current debates over globalization, from the silk route between China and Rome in the second century to the rise and fall of the Portuguese monopoly in spices in the sixteenth. Throughout, William Bernstein examines how our age-old dependency on trade...

From the author of A Splendid Exchange comes a remarkable history of media - from the alphabet to the internet - that examines how it has shaped human society over millennia.In Masters of the Word, Bernstein chronicles the development of the technology of human communication, or media, starting with the birth of writing thousands of years ago in Mesopotamia. In Sumer, and then Egypt, this revolutionary tool allowed rulers to extend their control f...

A "riveting and thoroughly researched" history of language technology's effect on society across millennia—from Sumerian syntax to social media hashtags (Phil Lapsley).Writing was born thousands of years ago in Mesopotamia. Spreading to Sumer, and then Egypt, this revolutionary tool allowed rulers to extend their control far and wide, giving rise to the world's first empires. When Phoenician traders took their alphabet to Greece, literacy's first boom led to the bi...

The classic guide to constructing a solid portfolio―without a financial advisor!First published two decades ago, The Four Pillars of Investing has been the go-to resource for an entire generation of investors. This updated edition of the investing classic provides the foundational knowledge you need to avoid the most common pitfalls and build a portfolio in today’s roller-coaster world of investing.Retired neurologist and master investor William J....

A Financial Times and Economist Best Book of the Year exploring world trade from Mesopotamia in 3,000 BC to modern globalization.How did trade evolve to the point where we don't think twice about biting into an apple from the other side of the world?In A Splendid Exchange, William J. Bernstein, bestselling author of The Birth of Plenty, traces the story of global commerce from its prehistoric origins to the myriad controv...

Inspired by Charles Mackay's 19th-century classic Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, Bernstein engages with mass delusion with the same curiosity and passion, but armed with the latest scientific research that explains the biological, evolutionary, and psychosocial roots of human irrationality. Bernstein tells the stories of dramatic religious and financial mania in western society over the last 500 years—from the Anabaptist Madness that afflicte...