In the first chapter of his book The Power of Gold, Peter Bernstein quotes the immortal words of King Ferdinand of Spain, who once declared: "Get gold, humanely if possible, but at all hazards--get gold." As ensuing chapters reveal, man's obsession with finding, keeping, selling, and evaluating gold has rarely been a humane adventure and has always been a hazardous one. Digging deeply into history's treasury of torrid tales and complicated deals, Bernstein examines gold's lure with an economist's passion for quantification, a historian's eye for detail, and a sociologist's feel for its consequence.
It is rare that a novel, even a good one, manages to evoke contemporary life without being self-conscious about it. But that is what Baxter achieves here in his portrait of a recently married couple--neurotic, cantankerous Saul Bernstein, who has taken a job teaching high school in rural Michigan, and his wife, Patsy, who does her best to steady him.
Isami's House - Three Centuries of a Japanese Family
In this powerful and evocative narrative, Gail Lee Bernstein vividly re-creates the past three centuries of Japanese history by following the fortunes of a prominent Japanese family over fourteen generations. The first of its kind in English, this book focuses on Isami, the eleventh generation patriarch and hereditary village head. Weaving back and forth between Isami's time in the first half of the twentieth century and his ancestors' lives in the Tokugawa and Meiji eras, Bernstein uses family history to convey a broad panoply of social life in Japan since the late 1600s.
How to Deal with Emotionally Explosive People
256 pages | McGraw-Hill; 1 edition | December 9, 2002 | ISBN: 007138569X | 1 Mb
In his international bestseller, Dinosaur Brains, psychologist Albert J. Bernstein told readers how to deal with difficult people at work. Now, in a groundbreaking new book, Bernstein tackles a more serious problem that profoundly affects the lives of millions of people: walking time bombs.
How do you help a friend who explodes into panic attacks?
What do you say when a depressed family member bursts into tears?
How do you protect yourself when a stranger blows up in your face?
Too often, our choices make matters worse. But it isn't our fault. All that we feel, and much of what we hear directs us to defend the fearful, comfort the sad, and talk sense to the angry, regardless of the utter futility of these well-meaning actions.
