Bernstein Books

Aside from being poorly written, this book had very little information that really would be helpful. The authors seemed to think by stating the obvious, they were somehow instructing the reader in the art of writing love letters. Most people already know what they want to say; the problem lies in how to form their thoughts and ideas into a coherent and romantic letter. This book is offers no real help in this area.

Aside from the above problems, the final reason which made me return this book, is that the authors tried to instruct the reader on how to write a letter to someone you'd like to have an affair with. I found this not only evidence of poor judgement on their part, but quite repugnant.

I love this book! sometimes through the ART of writing love letters can relationships really prosper and move on to another level. After reading this book and apply some of the techniques you learn, you'll soon realize that your relationship with that special someone will soar at an unstoppable rate! it's fantastic..cuz it worked for me

I had tried for close to two years to convince Sandy to marry me. We had a great time together, but she had lingering doubts. One of my college roommates, who was well aware of my situtation (since it was all I talked about) bought me this book -- I think as a joke. It was no joke. I read the whole book in a weekend, and much of it twice. I did not copy any of the well-written letters, but it helped me to express MY OWN feelings in a way I could not otherwise have done. The letter I wrote -- which I titled "I want to spend the rest of my life making you happy" worked. Last month, Sandy and I were married in St. Barts. This book deserves a lot of the credit for our happiness. It may not have the same profound effect on you that it did on Sandy and me, but I assure you that this wonderful book will help you to express the world's most important emotion -- true love!

This is the book for those of us who want to express our love, but are not always sure how to do so. The love letter is a lost art. We tend to be too self-conscious to express our true feelings in writing. We would rather communicate orally or by email or voice mail -- just so our thoughts and feelings will not be recorded in a permanent way. But this is unfortunate, because those who we love deserve the great joy of receiving a written expression of our feelings -- one that will truly make an impression and will survive even when we are gone. This wonderful book may bring back the lost art of the love letter. It provides real world advice for many situations, and sample letters. It will open up your mind, help you identify your feelings, and give you ideas of how to express them articulately and meaningfully. Another great thing about this book is that it is not limited to the love between spouses, significant others, etc. -- it addresses all kinds of love. You can write a love letter to a child, a parent, a teacher, a friend, someone you would like to get to know better (or even someone you would like to break-up with tactfully). These letters are not often written, but they should be! Why not express your feelings -- especially if, with a little help from the authors, you can do so eloquently. The advice is simple and easy to follow, and the sample letters are beautifully written. And because the authors are a male-female team, people of either gender will find ideas they can relate to. This is one of the relatively few books that could truly change your life (and the lives of the recipients of your letters!). One reader's advice: buy a copy (before next Valentine's Day!)

As I was writing a term paper about Broadway musicals a few years ago, I found The Making of West Side Story very helpful to my research. The book tells about the creation of the idea by Jerome Robbins and the subsequent collaboration with Leonard Bernstein, Arthur Laurents, and Stephen Sondheim. It tells of deep research into gang warfare, of grueling rehearsals with the oft-cold Robbins (in constrast to the gentler Bernstein), and of startled reactions to this unusual musical. My only complaint about this book is that it gives no proper respect to the movie version; it refuses to allow for the differences between the stage and the screen. Otherwise, highly recommended.

Maybe this title is the latest and best modern view of "West Side Story". Amazing and surprise you'll have spending your time reading it.

As I was writing a term paper about Broadway musicals a few years ago, I found The Making of West Side Story very helpful to my research. The book tells about the creation of the idea by Jerome Robbins and the subsequent collaboration with Leonard Bernstein, Arthur Laurents, and Stephen Sondheim. It tells of deep research into gang warfare, of grueling rehearsals with the oft-cold Robbins (in constrast to the gentler Bernstein), and of startled reactions to this unusual musical. It gives great insights into the motivations of the characters, the construction of the plot, and the choices of the lyrics and tunes.

My only complaint is that this book gives no proper respect to the excellent movie version; it refuses to allow for the differences between the stage and the screen. (Note: I did see the 1979 Broadway revival, as well as high school productions, and have enjoyed the movie umpteen times.) Otherwise, The Making of West Side Story is highly recommended.

This is an interesting account of how a team put together a provocative and innovative musical tragedy, bucking the trend of syrupy and simpler musicals for 1950s Broadway. Leonard Bernstein (for music), Stephen Sondheim (for lyrics) and Jerome Robbins (dance and direction) formed the nucleus, but there were also a playwrite, and other specialists and actors who all collaborated. The principals took a substantial risk in their budding careers and forged ahead confident of their inventiveness. The result is Broadway history, which opened the way to treating a myriad of other socially relevant subjects in later years. Though the music is what is remembered best now, it is truly a multi-media event that was pioneering in its time.

I read this because I am writing teaching materials for business execs to study, as a case of effective, if unorthodox, management. That is only one of the many many levels n which it can be read. The author offers a wonderful panorama of the dance, music, and acting that was current - and changed by this musical tradegy - at the time.

It appears that Garebian used only written sources to write this. As many of the participants were alive at least during the lat decade, this limits the account in unfortunate ways. But is it well written and a spur to read more elsewhere.

If you are interested, I would recommend this. If not, go to the biographies of the participants. Nonetheless, it is a solid view into a unique collaboration.

I come from the later generation where Aquaman is considered a rather lame superhero and the butt of many jokes. I bought this because I wanted to see if Aquaman was a better hero in the early days. Nope!

The guy can command fish, but all the people in Atlantis can do the same thing, so there is nothing unique about his powers. What he commands his fish to do is beyond ridiculous. Octopi boxing bad guys, eels forming everything from ladders to lassos, illuminated fish acting as spotlights, swordfish jumping out of the water pinning bad guys to walls, and whales acting as runways for planes. He can also command water buffalo simply because they have "water" in their name! I know these are fantasy stories, but come on!

I suppose this book might hold some nostalgic memories for some people, and I won't say the book is worthless since it does provide a great deal of comedic value, but out of all the older comic book compilations I have been reading as of late, this one is at the bottom of the list.

I didn't start reading Aquaman until the mid-1960s, so these stories are more history than memory to me. Still, it's a good package, and you just can't go wrong with the work of Nick Cardy. Advisory: there are virtually no female characters of any kind in this volume, so it's not a prime item for collectors of Cardy Women.

Unable to afford even all the major DC comics, I missed many of the secondary character adventures. Here is a fabulous collection, budget priced, for old and new readers. This is another case of buy it before it goes out of print. So, don't delay. Unlike Namor, Aquaman never engaged in insane violence. A few of the Sub-Mariner adventures, were enough to make me wonder why Namor was considered hot stuff. Now, Aquaman may have been a bit dopey, but he was a good guy. I would have given this title 5 stars, had not it been printed into the binding. Interestingly enough, the same stories, and less are printed in "DC Archives The Aquaman Archives,vol l," albeit in color and hardbound at the retail of $49.95. Those who wish to see how the other "fish" lived may be interested in "Marvel Masterworks Presents The Sub-Mariner Vol. 1.," a collection which primarily postdates the Aquaman stories.

AQUAMAN is by far the most underrated DC COMICS hero. This Showcase collection provides the very hard to get silver age stories from Adventure comics + a story from Lois Lane not collected in the Archive edition + the Showcase issues and the first couple issues of the regular Aquaman series. Money well spent. This is A+ stuff from a historical perspective and, if you like the character, it's a good fun read.

And, for all of you Sub-Mariner fans out there, you might want to know that Aquaman was actually connected to Atlantis way before Namor. Namor was originally from the Artic sea and didn't connect with Atlantis until Stan Lee wisely gave him what Aquaman already had. Sure, the Sub-Mariner came first, so it's a fair trade.

But AQUAMAN commands the fish! How cool is that?


Bradley Mason Hamlin, Mystery Island Publications 2007.

This is a very necessary book. It upends the simplistic desire to polarize everything: us vs. them, good vs, evil, the "coalition of the willing" vs. the "axis of evil." And in doing so creates a much more complex awareness of evil in all its radical "otherness." I liked this short book so much that I went on to read Bernstein's Radical Evil: A Philosophical Interrogation (2002) where he deals with issues more in depth with critical chapters on Freud, Nietzsche, Arendt. Schelling, Levinas, Kant, etc. I particularly liked his lines: "Interrogating evil is an ongoing, open-ended process"; "Evil is an excess that resists total comprehension"; "Evil resists all attempts to justify it; it resists theodicy"; and "The power of evil and the human propensity to commit evil deeds must not be underestimated."

Taking as his subject the danger political and religious absolutism poses to democracy, Richard J. Bernstein, a professor at Philosophy at the New School for Social Research in New York, seeks to show in THE ABUSE OF EVIL: The Corruption of Politics and Relgion Since 911 (Polity, 2005) how the Bush administration has used what he calls the absolutist mentality to choke off public discussion and criticism of the Iraqi invasion (and for that matter, everything else, too). Those who wish to understand how members of this and previous administrations have deployed the absolutist mentality against American democracy, and who wish to understand how they might counter its perniciousness will find this book extremely useful.

Bernstein begins his discussion with an explanation of a pair of related framing assumptions he calls the "grand Either/Or" and "the Cartesian Anxiety." This terminology may sound fairly esoteric, but the concepts are straightforward. They go a long way toward demystifying and elucidating how the Bush administration's strategy for stifling dissent works. The grand Either/Or grows out of "what [the philosopher Descartes] took to be the grand Either/Or that we confront: Either solid foundations and indubitable knowledge Or a swamp of unfounded and ungrounded opinion." (page 27). The Cartesian Anxiety is, according to Bernstein the "quest for some fixed ground, some stable rock upon which we can secure our lives against the vicissitudes that constantly threaten us." (page 27) He goes on to say "...that those today who claim religious or moral certainty for dividing the world into the forces of good and the forces of evil are shaped by this Cartesian Anxiety." (page 28).

Those who have read Shadia Drury's account of right wing political theorist Leo Strauss, LEO STRAUSS AND THE AMERICAN RIGHT will recognize this preference for the absolute in the anti-democratic analysis and program of the Straussians. Based on their exoteric/esoteric readings of Plato's Republic and other classical political texts, Straussians imagine themselves as an intellectual pastorate who must defend society against the depredations of Liberalism -- that socially disruptive idea which insists on equality of opportunity and justice. The grand Either/Or they posit based on their readings is between a beneficent plutocracy and anarchy. They see themselves as members of the plutocracy, of course. Not surprisingly, many members of and advisers to the Bush regime find congenial Strauss' anti-democratic theories.

Those who have read George Lakoff's MORAL POLITICS, will recognize the grand Either/Or as the "Strict Father" narrative which reinforces a right-wing program of top-down ideologically reinforced hierarchy -- a disciplinary program where punishment is more important than reward -- a program which believers are told flows out of the natural moral order established by God. The "Or" in the right's formulation in this case could be called the Weak Mother / Feminized Father, who, "liberal" to a fault, is characterized as ineffective, vacillating, a coddler of the undeserving, unable to make tough decisions and stick to them.

Bernstein believes that the best counter to absolutism is "pragmatic fallibilism," or as it is more commonly known, pragmatism, as espoused by Dewey, Peirce, James, Holmes and others. Quoting Louis Menand's THE METAPHYSICAL CLUB at some length, he agrees with Menand's premise that "these thinkers were reacting against the entrenched opposition [in the years before and during the Civil War], the absolute certainty by the opposing forces of the righteousness of their cause, the sheer intolerance toward those who held opposing convictions...." (page 22). Further, Bernstein says "Menand's thesis is that the pragmatic thinkers understook to develop a more flexible, open, experimental and fallible way of thinking that would avoid all forms of stark binary oppositions, and violent extremism." (Page 23)

Bernstein's readings of Hannah Arendt works in this context are particularly useful and illuminating. Arendt's view is that a democratic politics takes real personal and social commitment and is based on continuous engagement, discussion and disagreement, similar to the beliefs of the pragmatists, especially Dewey. Arendt's insights into the nature of totalitarian evil, which were based on her experience of resistance in Nazi Germany and her later reportage and thinking about the "banality of evil" as prompted by Eichmann's trial, is fruitfully contrasted against Carl Schmitt's anti-liberal theory of politics.

Schmitt, a German political theorist and enthusiastic supporter of Hitler believed, in Bernstein's words, that "Debate, deliberation, and persuasion obscure what is essential for politics -- firm sovereign decisions for dealing with political enemies" (page 91). Grounded on the familiar conservative judgment that man is evil, that enmity is the basic existential condition of mankind from which it follow that a strong sovereign must be in place to staunch chaos and enforce order, Schmitt, according to Bernstein, contends that "Sovereigns may pretend that they are making decisions in the name of some 'higher principle' or that they are following proper legal and political procedures, but this should not disguise the fact that such decisions are ungrounded; they are solely the sovereign's decision." (page 91).

Overall, Bernstein succinctly explains, examines, defends and endorses pragmatism, America's great contribution to world philosophy. Pragmatism, he shows, served the US well as the favored problem-solving approach to governance during the high tide of American liberalism in the first half of the 20th century. Bernstein shows why it is now the appropriate counter to the political and religious and political absolutism that the US has been subject to beginning with Cold War through to the latest "war" -- the so-called War on Terror. These absolutist wars and their Either/Or demagoguery have eroded the democratic spirit in America, he believes. Yet he also sees signs that Americans are beginning to reject the "my way or the highway," "love it or leave it" absolutist mentality, and instead are embracing resistance and dissent in the name of the revolutionary spirit of democracy.

Writing with the conviction that philosophy must be engaged, relevant and aware of its surroundings, Bernstein wisely ignores such trivialities as media consolidation, the military-industrial complex, depoliticization of primary school curricula (only reading-writing-arithmetic is left) and the political process, with its negligible campaign contributions, smoothly running voting machines, necessary court interventions and informative soundbites. Instead, he asks the crucial question of whether the Bush administration is of like mind with the Metaphysical Club (Dewey, Holmes, Peirce, James) that met after the Civil War or with Hannah Arendt's writings from the 1970s.

Taking a pragmatic approach to what needs to be done, Bernstein exhorts the reader to put faith in debate, deliberation and public intellectuals. He does not use the word "hegemony" once.

The book is occasionally interesting. Especially if you want a refresher on pragmatism or Hannah Arendt or a superficial summary of secularization theory. Or if you need to be reminded that not all Christians are (....)-minded. But for me it was a disappointing read. The thesis (George W. Bush is not a pragmatist and stark dichotomies oversimplify important questions) is completely uninteresting.

I get the feeling Bernstein wrote this for the money, to capitalize on the political climate he's so disturbed by. In fact, he starts by admitting that he was going to publish a book about evil right before 9/11. "The Abuse of Evil" seems to be a lament for that abandoned project, created by combining what he was already intending to publish (about an interesting "mentality" called "pragmatic fallibilism") and a maddeningly shallow treatment of "politics and religion since 9/11". Some may enjoy the intelligent reflections of the first part and the righteous outrage of the second. The problem is that the two parts don't fit together very well. At least that's what spoiled it for me.

I would have been much more impressed if Bernstein had said word one about how to make our politics (if not our politicians) more pragmatic.

I loved this book! I've read it more than once and have loaned my copy to friends who have also loved it. In fact it is currently on it's way to Seattle. I loved all of the characters, even the most annoying Mother Superior and business manager, because they were so real. I would love to be able to buy copies for friends, but they are hard to come by these days. I'll just have to keep loaning my copy out. It is well worth the risk of losing it just to be able to share a wonderful story with friends.

I read this book for the first time several years ago, and have read it several times since. I have lent it to friends who also loved it.

I read when I was close to the age Anna is in the story and was going through some of what Anna does. Not that I was ever a nun, but I made a drastic career change in my early 30s, which is EXACTLY what Anna is doing. She still loves the Church, but she also learns to love the outside world. She expends a lot of time and emotional energy in making her decision. Kirkus belittles her love of God and her devotion to duty, both of which she ultimately keeps, even though she sheds the habit.

This is an outstanding book, but read it before watching the PBS version. They butchered it.

Although I enjoyed the PBS production of "Body & Soul", I preferred the book over the TV seires. Anna became more alive in the book, revealing her emotional conflicts, her fear of changes and her doubts in the faith which were breezed through in the series. The book allowed you more reasons to empathize with Anna and Lynn. It was also less sensational , downplaying the sexual overtones highlighted in the series, and focusing more on emotional conflicts and freedom of choice. The decription on the nuns' behavior and mental state brought back memories of my contact with them during my school days in a Catholic girl school.Thos who liked the PBS series will definely like the book more.

This is probably the most important book on stuttering in print today. It is also one of the driest volumes in speech-language pathology I have ever read. Will tell you more about stuttering than you may want to know. Significantly, the material on treatment covers only 50 pages out of 600, so this is not the book you want to spend your money on if you are a speech therapist looking for treatment material. This is more of an overview of every scrap of research done on the subject since day one. Touches on every study ever done on the subject. Difficult reading because of its very dry, academic nature. Reads like one long journal article. ZZzzzzzz

This book will make you an expert on stuttering research from the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s. Some later research is covered, but much is missed. This might sound like a problem, but there was much fascinating, now ignored research done in the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s. Digging through this book you'll find some real surprises, e.g., two studies that unsuccessfully attempted to "distract" stutterers into fluency, or a study finding that stutterers are fluent when crawling. Reading this book makes you realize how the Ph.D.s ignored the research when touting their theories of stuttering (and that hasn't changed). But no one can accuse Bloodstein of ignoring research, at least before 1960.

Dr. Bloodstein's work will endure long after the current "how to make stuttering disappear" books via sleight of hand or "secret techniques" have been "swept away by the reality of their utter failure". Not an easy read, but an essential one for any clinician, scientist, or person who stutters. A complete reading will make one well-informed as to the nature of stuttering and decades of research findings- plus Bloodstein's cogent synthesis and interpretations. The critique on therapy in the back of the book is compelling, but all too often ignored.

Jane Bernstein has done an amazing job describing the heartbreak of the initial diagnosis and the ensuing challenges of raising a child with special needs. Having been in this same position with my own daughter, I felt like Jane was sitting in my kitchen watching the struggles we were having and the ones we faced with each passing day. I have recommended this book to colleagues and other families with similar circumstances.

I thought this was a wonderful book. It manages to be not only about what it's like to give birth to a disabled child, but about the particular nuances and responses of a family, about a marriage, an older child's attempts to navigate these waters, the narrator's complex, ambivalent but ultimately loving and couragous response to the child she has borne. Nothing is simple in this book--not Rachels' progress, not her family's response to her, not the medical world that sometimes seems to hurt her as much as it helps her, not the waiting and waiting to see what Rachel will become. Nonetheless, this is a story not only about endurance, but also about the complicated, powerful workings of maternal love.

I have a child who also has this disorder. Loving Rachel was important for me to read because there are no other books written which address Optic Nerve Hypoplasia or Septo Optic Dysplasia, but I want everyone to know who considers reading this that Loving Rachel is not a guide for you or your child and that no two people are affected in exactly the same way by this disorder. I could relate with some of the things Ms. Bernstein wrote about but mainly I walked away from this book feeling sad for this family and for Rachel.

I have just read Carl Bernstein's book, Loyalties and found it fell far short of what I would have expected from a man of his high journalistic reputation. His father did not want personal vignettes put into the book and yet Mr. Bernstein had lots of private comments about his parents that I felt were an invasion of their privacy. He also spent a lot of time on his own life at that time which really was secondary to the tumultous events his parents had been involved in. There should have been more input into the causes and events during those McCarthy years and what he did put in was episodic and not put together clearly. I also did not quite understand his attitudes regarding his parents' activities and membership in the Communist party which he put them on the spot about. He doesn't make things too clear. I felt he was too aware of making an impression with his writing abilities.

Bernstein talks about getting his butt kicked at school after his folks had to testify before Nixon/McCarthy, and it was in the following mornings papers.

Helps prove that the media is full of commies, and that if you are someone the media loves to hate, you are speaking the truth.
If you are a media darling, you are a commie.

Read this and see it for yourself.

People old enough to remember Watergate, first hand, have told me it was never revealed that Dick Nixon, Hoover, and McCarthy, were after Bersntein's folks, and had surviellance of Bernstein's bar-mitzvah, (to see who was on the invite list.)

My only complaint is all of the Yiddish in the book. The Communist Party must have been exclusivley Jewish, or at least at the mover and shaker level. When Bernstein's Mother was organizing counter-demonstrations to the Rosenberg's (Atomic spies) Death Penalty, she would talk with her family, and other party members, and some of it is related, ver batim. This includes the Yiddish, and Carl doesnt translate it, so I am still clueless as to what the exact phrase was.

It's a minor annoyance however, as you certainly get the flavor that this guy was less than objective from the time he was very little when it came to his desire to whip up the public against Nixon. Remember when Nixon was reelected he had over 60% approval ratings. Ratings as high as the media loved to tell us about comrade Clinton.

Check it out, very informative as to who the players in American Communism were, what their goals were, and how they acheived them.

This book could encourage independent thought among media watching American consumers, but let us not get to hopeful.
Also check out "Silent Coup" from Len Colodny and Robert Gettlin.

I love this book and have never understood how and why it went out of print. Maybe it helps the reader to be from Washington, DC. Carl Bernstein grew up around here, went to school around here, and his parents and family were very much part of the local radical scene, so when he names names and locates businesses, schools and houses, it's all walkable for those of us who live in the District. But beyond the local interest, Carl Bernstein gives us a strong sense of what it was to be part of a radical fifties family. This was a time when conformity was so nuanced, so as a kid Bernstein was both proud and ashamed to have his mother's picture appear on the front page of a major newspaper when she was arrested for picketing the Five and Ten. (People forget how much the Communist party contributed to the Civil Rights movement in some parts of the country during a period when there was still a risk of job loss for many who wanted to protest segregation.)

In short, this is a minor classic, much underrated and well worth reading. I teach history and I'd happily use it forone of my classes if I could just get enough copies for my students! My students who have read have all had good things to say.

Provides colorful and detailed account of the development and basic functioning of nuclear weapons as seen through the eyes of a physicist-turned-writer whose career in physics started just after the basic engineering challenges of nuclear weapons were mostly solved. Written with clarity, thus fun and easy to read. Nicely puts into perspective the initial discovery of nuclear fission. Good coverage of the Manhattan Project of the political intricacies that led to the development of the "super"(hydrogen booster) bomb.

On the page before the book's title page there's a one-paragraph abstract for the book, along with a brief paragraph about the author. One sentence in the abstract says "The book is a history of nuclear weapons." Yes it is, although I think the Richard Rhodes book _The Making of the Atomic Bomb_ is a much more satisfying history. Bernstein does include one technically important topic, new to me, that wasn't even breathed about in the Rhodes book -- the high sensitivity of plutonium's crystalline state to temperature.

Since the book's subtitle is "What You Need to Know," I initially figured another sentence in the abstract was key to the book: "Dr. Bernstein writes in response to what he sees as a widespread misunderstanding throughout the media and hence among the general public of the basic workings and potential impact of nuclear weaponry." Then in his Introduction, Bernstein suggests, quoting Stanley Kubrick, that most people are blase about the danger of nuclear weapons -- they have "even less interest in them than they [do] in city government. (...) [P]eople seem to look on the absence of a nuclear conflict as they would money growing in a savings account."

Overall, then, I thought Bernstein would try to graphically remind us that nuclear weapons are REALLY DANGEROUS and propose approaches citizens might take to lessen the likelihood of a REALLY GRIM future. As a 60-year-old physicist myself (and one who's become as blase as everyone else about the hazard of such fearsome weapons), this struck me as a worthy aim on Bernstein's part.

But, apparently, in writing the book, Bernstein essentially forgot about that theme (if it was ever really his intention -- maybe I'm wrong) and merely wrote a rather meandering history of nuclear weapons, including his slight personal acquaintance with them, the latter being familiar to me, probably from articles of his in The New Yorker.

So the book is a disappointment in that way. It's also surprisingly muddled about physics at quite a number of points. There are points at which I'd like to understand what he's trying to describe, but I can't. Worse, there are a couple of instances where he spouts stuff that I recognize as nonsense, but a layman probably wouldn't recognize it as such. Two specific examples of such howlers:

Page 210 - "Fifty grams of [deuterium] plus [tritium] has about the mass of one gram of uranium." Perhaps he actually meant "about the energy."

Page 214 - "As [the sun] compressed [during its formation], the pressure at the center became greater and greater, which increased the temperature." Cause and effect exactly backwards! Actually, increasing temperature boosted the pressure.

Bernstein **can** write well. His two "Reporter At Large" New Yorker articles in 1975 about the great physicist I.I. Rabi were terrific. But he shouldn't be satisfied with this new book.

Two stars because some of the historical vignettes are new (to me) and interesting.

NUCLEAR WEAPONS: What You Need To Know, is a very well written account of the people and the physics that went into creating the world's weapons of mass destruction. Any one teaching about this topic will surely wish to consider this as a textbook or reference. The book makes a nice complement to the video THE DAY AFTER TRINITY in which one "meets" many of the characters in Bernstein's book. The Day After Trinity

A 2007 book, it makes reference to many contemporary problems, Iran, Iraq, a terrorist bomb, DPRK, and proliferation. It includes suggestions for further reading should one find something missing, or wish to pursue the topic in more depth.

The one element I found missing in detail, since this is "What You Need To Know," is what happens to people when such a device explodes overhead or otherwise nearby. Bernstein does state numbers for deaths in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. He gives, 90,000 and 74,000. I believe Carey Sublette provides similar numbers. The question becomes, "In what year do you stop counting?" For many decades now the "official" figure that comes from reliable sources in Hiroshima is that by Dec. 31, 1945, the death toll was 140,000, with 10% possible error. Sadako Sasaki died 10 years later as did many others between 1945 and 1955. In general, not criticizing Bernstein or Sublette, when an enemy of ours kills, we use death figures from the victims; when WE kill we use OUR figures. When the 90,000 figure is used for nuclear deaths, I wonder if someone is trying to make it seem no worse than the Tokyo air raids. The United States government has never published a full and detailed account of what happened to the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and still remains with the few survivors to this day, some 63 years after.

I would add to the Further Reading Suggestions, Naomi Shohno's THE LEGACY OF HIROSHIMA, Legacy of Hiroshima: Its Past, Our Future, James C. Warf's ALL THINGS NUCLEAR, All Things Nuclear, and DAYS TO REMEMBER from the Hiroshima Nagasaki Publishing Committee, Days to Remember: An Account of the Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

NUCLEAR WEAPONS: What You Need To Know, is an excellent book. It has my highest recommendation. Give it 10 STARS!

The author of this book is a gifted writer. His clarity of expression is significantly above average. In this book, he discusses both historical issues as well as very technical ones, all pertaining to Einstein's 1905 papers. The historical snippets, which include several mini-biographies of various scientists, make for extremely pleasant reading. On the other hand, regarding the technical discussions, we have what I perceive as a mixed bag: some of them are quite clear from beginning to end, while others, although they start off very clear, seem to be missing a few important details before their conclusions are suddenly presented. Consequently, readers who want to learn some of the technical details on special relativity, etc., while minimizing their likelihood of becoming confused, should look elsewhere; there are many excellent books at all levels on these topics. On the positive side, this book does have a lot of information that would not likely be included in, say, a textbook; thus, it would likely complement a more technical source very nicely. Unfortunately, the book contains many typographical errors that, in the long run, can become quite annoying. But overall, this is a pleasant read, although it can be heavy going at times. This book would likely appeal to science buffs who are more interested in science history than in complete, although popularized, scientific expositions of Einstein's 1905 papers.

The arguements are not as simple to follow as claimed.

I just read this book and very much enjoyed it. I am a theoretical physicist and last year gave several public lectures on Einstein's work of 1905. I wish I had had this book at hand then. It "suffers" the "Adam and Eve problem", as my sister and I used to denote my father's approach to answering our questions: Bernstein starts way at the beginning and gives a lot of physics background to the questions Einstein tackled. I believe this gives a much deeper and enjoyable understanding. I even learned some new things about Copernicus. The treatment of relativity is very lucid and I think at an excellent level for the general public. Bernstein uses some high-school math but nothing beyond using the Pythagorean theorem for the distance between two points. This enables him to capture the essence and also the profundity of Einstein's arguments. It is fair to say that without math one will always only scratch the surface. I was surprised to see how well Bernstein could explain the content of the relativity with so little math.

The only down side of the book is that there is a fair number of typos in the second half, which will hopefully be corrected in the second edition.