Thursday, October 8th, 2020 "The Iconoclast: Shinzo Abe and the New Japan” - Book Talk by Tobias S. Harris

Description

The Centre for the Study of Global Japan was joined by Adam Liff, Director of the 21st Century Japan Politics & Society Initiative at Indiana University’s Hamilton Lugar School, and invited Tobias S. Harris to introduce his new book, ‘The Iconoclast: Shinzo Abe and the New Japan.’    

Book Description: Shinzō Abe entered politics burdened by high expectations: that he would change Japan. In 2007, seemingly overwhelmed, he resigned after only a year as prime minister. Yet, following five years of reinvention, he masterfully regained the premiership in 2012, and for almost eight years dominated Japanese democracy as no leader has done before. Abe inspired fierce loyalty among his followers, sidelining rivals with his ambitious economic programme and support for the security and armed forces. He staked a leadership role for Japan in a region being rapidly transformed by the rise of China and India, while carefully preserving an ironclad relationship with Trump’s America. ‘The Iconoclast’ tells the story of Abe’s meteoric rise and stunning fall, his remarkable comeback, and his unlikely emergence as a global statesman laying the groundwork for Japan’s survival in a turbulent century.   

Speaker Bio:  Tobias Harris is an expert on Japanese politics, and the author of "The Iconoclast: Shinzo Abe and the New Japan," the first English-language biography of Japan’s longest-serving prime minister.  From 2006-2007 Tobias worked on the staff of Keiichiro Asao, at that time a member of the upper house of the Japanese Diet and shadow foreign minister for the Democratic Party of Japan, for whom he conducted research on foreign policy and Japan’s relations with the United States. He earned an MPhil in International Relations from the University of Cambridge and a bachelor’s degree in Politics and History from Brandeis University. Tobias has also conducted graduate research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and, from 2011-2012, at the Institute for Social Science at the University of Tokyo as a Fulbright scholar.  Tobias has written about Japanese politics for publications including the Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, and Foreign Affairs and regularly provides on-air analysis for CNBC, Bloomberg, and other networks. He was the Fellow for Economy, Trade, and Business at Sasakawa Peace Foundation USA from 2014-2020.