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A both definitive and highly enjoyable book on how modern Japan works, from Asia expert David Pilling FINANCIAL TIMES BOOKS OF THE YEAR 2014 'An affectionate, beautifully written and counter-intuitively optimistic take on the country, which stresses Japan's ability to reinvent itself' (Gideon Rachman, Financial Times ) Despite years of stagnation, Japan remains one of the world's largest economies and a country which exerts a remarkable cultural fascination. David Pilling's new book is an entertaining, deeply knowledgeable and surprising analysis of a group of islands which have shown great resilience, both in the face of financial distress and when confronted with the overwhelming disaster of the 2011 earthquake and resulting tsunami. Bending Adversity is a superb work of reportage and the essential book even for those who already feel they know the country well.
About the author
David Pilling is the Asia Editor of the Financial Times. He was Tokyo Bureau Chief from 2002-08, and has won several awards for his columns on Japan and China. He is currently based in Hong Kong.
Summary
A both definitive and highly enjoyable book on how modern Japan works, from Asia expert David Pilling
FINANCIAL TIMES BOOKS OF THE YEAR 2014
'An affectionate, beautifully written and counter-intuitively optimistic take on the country, which stresses Japan's ability to reinvent itself' (Gideon Rachman, Financial Times)
Despite years of stagnation, Japan remains one of the world's largest economies and a country which exerts a remarkable cultural fascination. David Pilling's new book is an entertaining, deeply knowledgeable and surprising analysis of a group of islands which have shown great resilience, both in the face of financial distress and when confronted with the overwhelming disaster of the 2011 earthquake and resulting tsunami.
Bending Adversity is a superb work of reportage and the essential book even for those who already feel they know the country well.
Report
Bending Adversity is a superb reappraisal of the so-called 'lost decade(s)' of contemporary Japan. David Pilling combines a historian's breadth of vision, an anthropologist's clearheadedness, an investigator's knack of knowing what questions to ask, an economist's grasp of the circuitry of money and a top-notch journalist's curiosity about the human effects of political causes. The result
is a probing, nourishing and independent-minded book for any reader seeking to understand modern Japan and its unsure place in the world
David Mitchell
