William Bernstein's The Four Pillars of Investing gives investors the tools they need to construct top-returning portfolios­­without 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 betterinformed investment decisions. The 4 Pillars of Investing explains how any investor can build a solid foundation for investing by focusing on four essential lessons, each building upon the other. Containing all of the tools needed to achieve investing success, without the help of a financial advisor, it presents:

• Practical investing advice based on fascinating history lessons from the market
• Exercises to determine risk tolerance as an investor
• An easy-to-understand explanation of risk and reward in the capital markets

A timeless approach to investing wisely over an investment lifetime

With the current market maelstrom as a background, this timely guide describes just how to plan a lifetime of investing, in good times and bad, discussing stocks and bonds as well as the relationship between risk and return.

Filled with in-depth insights and practical advice, The Investor's Manifesto will help you understand the nuts and bolts of executing a lifetime investment plan, including: how to survive dealing with the investment industry, the practical meaning of market efficiency, how much to save, how to maintain discipline in the face of panics and manias, and what vehicles to use to achieve financial security and freedom.

• Written by bestselling author William J. Bernstein, well known for his insights on how individual investors can manage their personal wealth and retirement funds wisely
• Examines how the financial landscape has radically altered in the past two years, and what investors should do about it
• Contains practical insights that the everyday investor can understand
• Focuses on the concept of Pascal's Wager-identifying and avoiding worst-case scenarios, and planning investment decisions on that basis

With The Investor's Manifesto as your guide, you'll quickly discover the timeless investment approaches that can put you in a better position to prosper over time....

Adam Smith wrote that man has an intrinsic "propensity to truck, barter, and exchange one thing for another." But 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 tells the extraordinary story of global commerce from its prehistoric origins to the myriad controversies surrounding it today. He begins in ancient Mesopotamia, where early traders floated barley, copper, and ivory up and down the Tigris and Euphrates, and he moves on to the Greeks, whose grain trade helped ignite the Peloponnesian War. He transports readers from the ships that carried silk from China to Rome on monsoon gales in the second century to the rise and fall of the Portuguese monopoly in spices in the sixteenth; from the rush for sugar that brought the British to Jamaica in 1655 to the American trade battles of the early twentieth century; from key innovations such as steam, steel, and refrigeration to the modern era of televisions from Taiwan, lettuce from Mexico, and T-shirts from China.

Along the way, Bernstein, who is both a gifted storyteller and an accomplished economic theorist, brings to life a gallery of fascinating characters and synthesizes thousands of years of history--social, cultural, political, military, and economic--into a rich and engaging narrative. He explores how our age-old dependency on trade has contributed to our planet's agricultural bounty, stimulated intellectual progress, and made us both prosperous and vulnerable. Bernstein concludes that although the impulse to trade often takes a backseat to xenophobia and war, it is ultimately a force for good among nations, and he argues that societies are far more successful and stable when they are involved in vigorous trade with their neighbors.

Lively, authoritative, and astonishing in scope, A Splendid Exchange is a riveting narrative that views trade and globalization not in political terms, but rather as an evolutionary process as old as war and religion--a historical constant--that will continue to foster the growth of intellectual capital, shrink the world, and propel the trajectory of the human species.

Includes 23 maps and 40 black-and-white illustrations....