3.11: Disaster and Change in Japan Richard J. Samuels, Ithaca, NY and London: Cornell University Press, 2013, xv + 274 pp, US$29.95 (Hardback), ISBN 9780801452000

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/pa.1708
• Date: 01 November 2018
• Published date: 01 November 2018

BOOK REVIEW

3.11: DISASTER AND CHANGE IN JAPAN

By Richard J. Samuels

Ithaca, NY and London: Cornell University Press, 2013, xv + 274 pp, US$29.95

(Hardback), ISBN 9780801452000

Natural disaster as a major adverse event resulting from geologic

processes of the earth has received an enhanced scholarly attention,

particularly when a number of the most recent life‐threatening

calamities including earthquakes, tsunamis, floods, hurricanes, and

tornadoes have imperiled the 21st century's global security. It is quite

evident that Asia is the most disaster‐afflicted area across the world,

and this region has borne the brunt of increasing damages from these

uncontrollable catastrophes since 1980s. If we gaze at the massive

exposure to natural disasters, Asian cities are becoming more and more

vulnerable to heavily monstrous and acutely grievous incidents, and

especially, the South Asian metropolises are most at risk of the natural

disasters due to various causes such as deficiency of technological

infrastructure, abysmal planning, chronic poverty, population explo-

sion, geographical positioning, and climate change. Visibly also, climate

disasters are on the rise, and around 70% of disasters are now climate

related, up from around 50% from two decades ago. Moreover,

although the cost of responding to disasters has increased tenfold

between 1992 and 2008, it is alarming that the frequently occurred

natural disasters unfortunately claim tens of thousands of human lives

and cost billions of dollars every year even in this prosperous region's

highly urbanized and eco‐friendly cities. It is a bleak reminder that

natural disasters can be a constant threat to human security even in

an era of highly modern technologies and nearly instant communica-

tions we live. Very briefly, climate change because of its severe impact

on natural disasters is now the topmost prioritized global issue of the

United Nations (UN). Owing to this volume's so relevancy and urgency

from such a disciplinary background, I have actually selected it for

reviewing.

I have chosen this single‐authored publication (entitled 3.11:

Disaster and Change in Japan) from among many more stacks of books

at a library in a Japan‐based research institution, because it has riveted

my attention intently and uncommonly for some other appropriate

justifications. First of all, the academic expertise and interest of the

volume's author (Richard Samuels) and myself as a reviewer are similar.

Granted that this globally notable Japanologist is the founding director

of the Japan Program and director of the Center for International

Studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in America,

I hold the positions of head at the Program on New & Global Japan

Studies and director at the Division of Asian & World Affairs of the

Asia Pacific Institute for Global Studies (APIGS), a Bangladesh‐based

newly inaugurated think tank for which I am also the sole founder

and creator. Besides, I was awarded an 2008 outstanding award

(named after Yasuhiro Nakasone, one of the most influential prime

ministers in post‐modern Japan) sponsored by the Institute for Interna-

tional Policy Studies (IIPS) in Tokyo that pursues concurrent research

projects covering global strategic, political, economic, and sustainabil-

ity issues, admitting that this Ford international professor was con-

ferred an imperial decoration, the “Order of the Rising Sun”(Gold

and Silver Star) by the emperor of Japan and the Japanese government

in 2011. As his available profile also claims the fact, he is one of the

only three scholars (Japanese or foreign) to have produced more than

one scholarly monograph recognized by the Nippon Foundation as

one of the top one hundred books for understanding contemporary

Japan. However, when his book received the prize from the Masayoshi

Ohira Memorial Foundation in 1988, it is an intriguing happening that

my Pacific Basin research project was supported from this same grant‐

maker established in Tokyo in the honor of a later Japanese premier.

Both of our academic distinctions with the matching cases are

purveyed, just because not only the readers (both talented and novice)

but also a few truly distinctive academic journals' editors often ask

“who”assesses the quality of a book as well as the ability of its creator.

Above and beyond, I have already contributed many well‐read

articles in the areas of environmental problems, natural disasters, and

sustainable development to publication outlets with worldwide

reputation. Receiving international funding, I have most recently

accomplished several research projects on the related concerns as well.

Actually, my individual research, titled “Japan as the World's Most

Enviable Role Model in Earthquake Management: What Lessons Can

Bangladesh Learn from the March 2011 Mega Disasters?”financed

by the Tokyo‐based Sumitomo Foundation, is directly pertinent to this

publication. For details, Samuels in the “Preface”discloses:

This book was a project of discovery and rediscovery; of

connection and reconnection. It was an unexpected

culmination of a lifetime of research and writing on the

very policy issues most affected by 3.11; my earlier

books on local government, energy policy, the political

economy of technology, military security, and political

leadership all inform this study. Indeed, they converged

on the topic with a force I could not have anticipated.

(p. xiii)

According to him, even his very first publication and edited volume

on political generations helped him think about the task facing the

Received: 22 February 2018 Accepted: 23 February 2018

DOI: 10.1002/pa.1708

J Public Affairs. 2018;18:e1708.

https://doi.org/10.1002/pa.1708

© 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/pa 1of8