A Splendid Exchange

Traces the evolution of international trade, from ancient Mesopotamia to today's global marketplace, exploring the influence of commerce on agriculture, technology, politics, and civilization as a whole.

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 controversies surrounding it today. Journey from ancient sailing ships carrying silk from China to Rome in the second century to the rise and fall of the Portuguese monopoly on spices in the sixteenth; from the American trade battles of the early twentieth century to the modern era of televisions from Taiwan, lettuce from Mexico, and T-shirts from China. Bernstein conveys trade and globalization not in political terms, but rather as an ever-evolving historical constant, like war or religion, that will continue to foster the growth of intellectual capital, shrink the world, and propel the trajectory of the human species. “[An] entertaining and greatly enlightening book.” —The New York Times “A work of which Adam Smith and Max Weber would have approved.” —Foreign Affairs “[Weaves] skillfully between rollicking adventures and scholarship.” —Pietra Rivoli, author of The Travels of a T-Shirt in the Global Economy

Traces the evolution of international trade, from ancient Mesopotamia to today's global marketplace, exploring the influence of commerce on agriculture, technology, politics, and civilization as a whole.

Traces the evolution of international trade, from ancient Mesopotamia to today's global marketplace, exploring the influence of commerce on agriculture, technology, politics, and civilization as a whole.

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 birth of drama and democracy. In Rome, it helped spell the downfall of the Republic. Later, medieval scriptoria and vernacular bibles gave rise to religious dissent, and with the combination of cheaper paper and Gutenberg’s printing press, the fuse of Reformation was lit. The Industrial Revolution brought the telegraph and the steam driven printing press, allowing information to move faster and wider than ever before through the invention of the newspaper. But along with radio and television, these new technologies were more easily exploited by the powerful, as seen in Germany, the Soviet Union, even Rwanda, where radio incited genocide. With the rise of carbon duplicates (Russian samizdat), photocopying (the Pentagon Papers), the internet, social media, and cell phones (the recent Arab Spring) more people have access to communications, making the world more connected than ever before. This “accessible, quite enjoyable, and highly informative read” will change the way you look at technology, history, and power (Booklist). “[Bernstein] enables us to see what remains the same, even as much has changed.” —Library Journal, “Editors’ Picks” “It brims with interesting ideas and astonishing connections.” —Phil Lapsley, author of Exploding the Phone: The Untold Story of the Teenagers and Outlaws Who Hacked Ma Bell “[Bernstein’s] narrative is succinct and extremely well sourced. . . . [He] reminds us of a number of technologies whose changed roles are less widely chronicled in conventional histories of the media.” —The Irish Times

This “disturbing yet fascinating” exploration of mass mania through the ages explains the biological and psychological roots of irrationality (Kirkus Reviews). From time immemorial, contagious narratives have spread through susceptible groups—with enormous, often disastrous, consequences. Inspired by Charles Mackay’s nineteenth-century classic Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, neurologist and author William Bernstein examines mass delusion through the lens of current scientific research in The Delusions of Crowds. Bernstein tells the stories of dramatic religious and financial mania in western society over the last five hundred years—from the Anabaptist Madness of the 1530s to the dangerous End-Times beliefs that pervade today’s polarized America; and from the South Sea Bubble to the Enron scandal and dot com bubbles. Through Bernstein’s supple prose, the participants are as colorful as their “desire to improve one’s well-being in this life or the next.” Bernstein’s chronicles reveal the huge cost and alarming implications of mass mania. He observes that if we can absorb the history and biology of this all-too-human phenomenon, we can recognize it more readily in our own time, and avoid its frequently dire impact.

“Compact and immensely readable . . . a tour de force. Prepare to be amazed.” John C. Bogle, Founder and Former CEO, The Vanguard Group Bernstein is widely respected as author of the bestseller, The Intelligent Asset Allocator Identifies and explains the four conditions necessary for human progress

Light streams through the windows as the espresso machine roars; a gorgeous, rich scent fills the air; and witty conversation unspools over the porcelain cups. That's the café dream. Mark and Nina are about to experience the reality. Determined to re-create the perfect Viennese coffeehouse, they descend on New York's gritty but hip Lower East Side to educate the locals on authentic café culture. Soon Mark and Nina are in a downward spiral that will strip them of money, friends, sex life, status, shelter, and, finally, sanity—and offer salvation through something they have never experienced: disaster. Inspired by the author's own coffeehouse hell, Ground Up is a sharp and funny portrait of a New York constantly reinventing itself, and a surprisingly tender story of falling out of love and back in it again.