David Pilling is the Asia Editor of the Financial Times. He was Tokyo Bureau Chief from 2002-2008, and has won several awards for his columns on Japan and China. He is currently based in Hong Kong.
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*
Fascinating and well-researched ... Pilling's experience as a
journalist lends Bending Adversity a welcome veracity it might
otherwise have lacked ... the six sections are written lucidly and
contain a wealth of useful information ... Pilling went to the area
where the tsunami struck on several occasions and his reportage
from those experiences is the best writing here - poignant,
insightful, understated, heart breaking but also often uplifting
... This book does an excellent job of demonstrating just how
resilient the Japanese people have been in the face of recent
environmental, social, and economic disaster
*Independent*
Bending Adversity does an excellent job of reappraising [Japan's]
lost years of economic deflation and social and political
stagnation ... There has to be a way, says Pilling, that we can
live without growth. This fascinating and timely book shows us
where to look for it
*Spectator*
Pilling, like many writers who come to love Japan and enjoy its
many eccentricities, wants to rescue it from the standard
one-dimensional images of the country as some sort of model or
cautionary tale ... we need to read this book and find that Japan
is a much more interesting and engaging place, for all its flaws
and frustrations, than the drama theorists would have us
believe
*Literary Review*
A superb book on contemporary Japan that, better than any other I
have read, manages to get the reader inside the skin of Japanese
society ... astutely observed ... a great read brimming with
insights and ... crafting a colourful and rounded analysis, one
that doesn't shy from criticism, but also veers away from shrill
harangue. It is evident that Pilling is keen on Japan, but it is
not a naive embrace. I admire his knack for finding the fault-line
in most any debate about Japan and fairly summarizing both sides...
delivering a balanced assessment that sidesteps what he terms the
'sneering bitterness' that animates much analysis of contemporary
Japan. Along the way, readers encounter a diversity of perspectives
that subvert tropes of uniformity and conformity
*Japan Times*
Pilling draws on his own experiences, as well as interviews with
novelists, academics, politicians, former prime ministers,
executives, bankers, activists, and citizens young and old to
provide a probing and insightful portrait of contemporary Japan
*Publishers Weekly*
Breaking Adversity is a fascinating read for anyone with an
interest in economics and politics eager to know more about how a
significant world power got to the top tables of international
diplomacy. However, it has more to offer than just this. Pilling is
every bit as interesting when he tells the stories of the everyday
Japanese behind the headlines, and how their self-image as a nation
has been forced to change several times during the course of the
country's transition into the modern world
*Sunday Business Post*
Eloquent and ambitious ... as a financial journalist, [Pilling
makes] coherent and interesting arguments about the real nature of
Japanese economic decline and explaining that its huge government
debt is not necessarily a portent of doom ... powerful
*Sunday Times*
David Pilling is an Anglo expert on Japan ... authoritative and
entertaining ... [Pilling] deftly manages the trick of illustrating
grand sweep with small anecdote
*Observer*
Not the least of the merits of Pilling's hugely enjoyable and
perceptive book on Japan is that he places the denunciations of two
allegedly 'lost decades' in the context of what the country is
really like and its actual achievements
*Financial Times*
The first major book on Japan for many years, and an entertaining,
knowledgeable and surprising analysis of the country and its
culture
*Bookseller*
Pilling, the Asia editor of the Financial Times, is perfectly
placed to be our guide, and his insights are a real rarity when
very few Western journalists communicate the essence of the world's
third largest economy in anything but the most superficial ways.
Here, there is a terrific selection of interview subjects mixed
with great reportage and fact selection ... Exhilarating
*Daily Telegraph*
An affectionate, beautifully written and counter-intuitively
optimistic take on the country, which stresses Japan's ability to
reinvent itself
*Financial Times BOOKS OF THE YEAR*
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