Sylff News

Takehiro Kurosaki, deputy director of the Pacific Islands Centre (PIC) in Tokyo, Japan, has published a book (in Japanese) on the political history of the Marshall Islands. The book, issued in October 2013, is based on his doctoral dissertation at Waseda University and research conducted during the three years that Kurosaki worked at the Japanese Embassy in the Republic of the Marshall Islands after receiving his PhD.

The Marshall Island’s path to independence overlaps, in many ways, Japan’s postwar experience. Kurosaki thus devotes many pages to the country’s relations with the United States, which continues to maintain bases there, and to the ongoing legal battle for compensation for damages from US nuclear tests conducted at Bikini Atoll and Eniwetok Atoll.

Kurosaki (center)

“My hope in writing this book,” Kurosaki writes in the preface, “was not just to document the modern political history of an island country in the South Pacific but, through such an examination, to also offer new insights into how Japan can address its many contemporary challenges.”

The book goes beyond historical analysis to offer hints on how Japan can tackle the issues it confronts today, thus exemplifying the Sylff ideal of nurturing leaders to resolve real-life problems. The Tokyo Foundation warmly wishes Kurosaki further success in his budding career.