Project Japan

Project Japan is the product of a long journey by author Graham Cooper. A sustained rolling programme relating to contemporary art and architecture in Japan, this project involved over a decade of commitment, more than a dozen research and documentation

Metabolism was a movement launched in Japan that took inspiration for buildings and cities from biological systems. With interviews and commentary and hundreds of images, Project Japan unearths a history that casts new light on the key issues that both enervate and motivate architecture today.

This is the first book to examine in-depth Japan's relations with Africa. Japan's dependence on raw materials from South Africa made it impossible for Tokyo in the 1970s and 1980s to support other African states in their fight against the minority government and its policy of apartheid. Kweku Ampiah's detailed analysis of Japan's political, economic and diplomatic relations with sub-Saharan Africa from 1974 to the early 1990s makes it clear that Japan was lukewarm in the struggle against apartheid. Case studies of Tanzania and Nigeria dissect Japan's trade, aid and investment policies in sub-Saharan Africa more widely.

Since 1987, the Japan Exchange and Teaching (JET) Program has recruited thousands of young college graduates from more than sixty countries, including the United States, to work in Japan for up to five years. Now, thirty years after the program’s founding, there are more than 60,000 JET Program alumni worldwide, more than half of them hailing from the United States. The JET Program and the US–Japan Relationship: Goodwill Goldmine argues that JET functions as much more than an opportunity for young people to spend a year or more teaching in Japanese schools or working in municipal offices across the Japanese archipelago. This study examines the JET program as a form of public diplomacy and soft power. Through original survey data and extensive interviews with alumni, the author provides a quantitative analysis of the program’s effects and argues that it has been highly useful in shaping interactions between Japan and the United States.

Large projects are defining moments for companies and countries. When large projects succeed, they can dramatically improve the social and economic conditions in a region. This book focuses on major aspects of the world’s largest infrastructural, industrial and public service projects through the lens of structuring, valuing, managing risk and financing projects. The book analyses and discuss large projects in government, private and public and private partnership. The author sheds light into the attributes of project finance which have unique structural elements. The book focuses on case studies related to 50 mega projects which includes infrastructural projects, energy related projects, industrial projects, roads, ports and bridges among others. This book covers both the theoretical aspects of financing of mega projects and the practical applications by including case studies of the world’s largest projects in terms of value.

Once the world's largest ODA provider, contemporary Japan seems much less visible in international development. However, this book demonstrates that Japan, with its own aid philosophy, experiences, and models of aid, has ample lessons to offer to the international community as the latter seeks new paradigms of development cooperation.