Bob Whiting came to the city as a stranger in a strange land in 1962 and stayed for five decades—he knows the dark alleys, the good whisky bars, the crooked politicians and the crooks, the baseball players, the bookies…better than anyone alive." —Jake Adelstein, author of Tokyo Vice Critically acclaimed author and longtime Japan resident Robert Whiting turns his attention to the fascinating stories of foreigners who made waves and achieved notoriety in post-World War II Japan. In this rare insider's look at Japan through the eyes of foreigners, this book covers a fascinating swathe of Japanese history, from the immediate postwar period up to the 2022 assassination of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. The fascinating stories of the gamblers, dreamers, and other chancers who made their mark in modern Japan include US servicemen running Vegas-style gambling dens; baseball managers Like Bobby Valentine; hostesses, bar managers and wannabe yakuza gangsters; religious fanatics such as Members of the Moonies, and businessmen like disgraced Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn. This fascinating book provides an unvarnished look at the post-war history of Japan and offers cautionary tales about how welcoming Japan really is towards outsiders. It is based on original research and reporting by the author, a 60-year resident of Tokyo.
A hilarious, informative, and riveting account of Japanese baseball and the cultural clashes that ensued when Americans began playing there professionally. In Japan, baseball is a way of life. It is a philosophy. It is besuboru. Its most important element is wa—group harmony—embodied in the proverb "The nail that sticks up shall be hammered down." In this witty and incisive book, Robert Whiting gives us a close-up look at besuboru's teams, obsessive ritualism, and history, as seen through the eyes of American players who found the Japanese approach—rigorous pregame practices, the tolerance for tie games, injured pitchers encouraged to “pitch through the pain”—completely baffling. With vivid accounts of East meeting West, involving Babe Ruth, Ichiro Suzuki, Bobby Valentine, Japanese home run king Sadaharu Oh, and many others, this lively and completely unique book is an utter gem and baseball classic.
A riveting account of the role of Americans in the evolution of the Tokyo underworld in the years since 1945. In the ashes of postwar Japan lay a gold mine for certain opportunistic, expatriate Americans. Addicted to the volatile energy of Tokyo's freewheeling underworld, they formed ever-shifting but ever-profitable alliances with warring Japanese and Korean gangsters. At the center of this world was Nick Zappetti, an ex-marine from New York City who arrived in Tokyo in 1945, and whose restaurant soon became the rage throughout the city and the chief watering hole for celebrities, diplomats, sports figures, and mobsters. Tokyo Underworld chronicles the half-century rise and fall of the fortunes of Zappetti and his comrades, drawing parallels to the great shift of wealth from America to Japan in the late 1980s and the changes in Japanese society and U.S.-Japan relations that resulted. In doing so, Whiting exposes Japan's extraordinary "underground empire": a web of powerful alliances among crime bosses, corporate chairmen, leading politicians, and public figures. It is an amazing story told with a galvanizing blend of history and reportage.
Tokyo Junkie is a memoir that plays out over the dramatic 60-year growth of the megacity Tokyo, once a dark, fetid backwater and now the most populous, sophisticated, and safe urban capital in the world. Follow author Robert Whiting (The Chrysanthemum and the Bat, You Gotta Have Wa, Tokyo Underworld) as he watches Tokyo transform during the 1964 Olympics, rubs shoulders with the Yakuza and comes face to face with the city’s dark underbelly, interviews Japan’s baseball elite after publishing his first best-selling book on the subject, and learns how politics and sports collide to produce a cultural landscape unlike any other, even as a new Olympics is postponed and the COVID virus ravages the nation. A colorful social history of what Anthony Bourdain dubbed, “the greatest city in the world,” Tokyo Junkie is a revealing account by an accomplished journalist who witnessed it all firsthand and, in the process, had his own dramatic personal transformation.
This major new study re-examines one of the most controversial issues of early modern history: the impact of the English Reformation upon the English people. It represents an advance from the conventional reign-by-reign narrative to a more incisively thematic approach. Drawing on the author's own research in church art as well as in written records such as wills and parish accounts, and evaluating the findings of other recent historians, it forcefully challenges several of the currently fashionable interpretations of this crucial era.
This is the story of how a young high school student, through a quirk of fate, begins walking down a path that leads him to become a rural family doctor in Montana. Having served a close-knit community for fifty years Dr. Robert Whiting recounts a story of a diphtheria outbreak, some interesting cancer outcomes, and several cases requiring difficult decision making. In this personal account, youll learn what the medical textbooks cant teach you: How changes in medicine have directly affected practitioners The bond a small-town doctor forges with his community Creative ways to dealing with ailments The effects of malpractice charges on the profession And much more! Youll also follow Dr. Whitinga sportsman, musician, and a husbandoutside the profession. Somehow, he manages all those roles as he successfully carries out his practice. Take a closer look into just how he did it, and learn how changes in medicine have affected practitioners in From the Bedside to the HMO: A Doctors Journey.
Beautiful and conceited Alicia Matcham leads us through an intriguing web of deceit in search of a killer who is, bizarrely, welcomed by her family. This exciting, gripping crime novel is full of suspense and delivers a thrilling final twist.Saturday 10 June 1933, and one of Charles's Whitten's bridge players collapses at the table, apparently from natural causes. Charles's youngest daughter Patty is convinced it's murder and pleads with her sister Alicia - a party girl with connections - to help discover the truth. Their brother William is a penniless drunkard, their mother ingenuous, Patty naive, their father Charles all bluff and bluster and then there is John the seductive butler. It feels as though Alicia is in one of the new Agatha Christie murders: there were four people in the card room, surely one must be the murderer?
Matsui... Nomo... Sasaki... Ichiro... the so-called American "National Pastime" has developed a decidedly Japanese flair. Indeed, in this year's All-Star game, two of the starting American League outfielders were from Japan. And for the third straight year, Ichiro - the fleet-footed Seattle Mariner - received more votes for the All-Star game than any other player in the game today. Some 15 years ago, in the bestseller "You Gotta Have Wa," Robert Whiting examined how former American major league ballplayers tried to cope with a different culture while playing pro ball in Japan. Now, Whiting reverses his field and reveals how select Japanese stars have come across the Pacific to play in the big leagues. Not only have they had to deal with the American way of life, but they have individually changed the game in dramatic fashion.
From the author of Tokyo Junkie, “the definitive book on Japanese baseball and one of the best-written sports books ever” (San Francisco Chronicle). One might expect the sport of baseball in Japan to be a culture clash—a collision of American individualism with the Japanese focus on wa, or harmony. Instead, it has turned into a winning symbiosis. Imported American sluggers—some past their primes—have found new life in the East and have given credibility to the Japanese game. A succession of Japanese stars like Hideo Nomo left their teams to find success in the US major leagues, enabling MLB International to make hundreds of millions of dollars selling TV and licensing rights to its games in Japan. While philosophical differences remain, You Gotta Have Wa guides you through the strange and fascinating world of besuboru, or baseball. With a history of the game in Japan and an overview of the Japanese leagues and their rules, this book follows the careers of players and managers who influenced the game in the East and vice versa—including Babe Ruth, Ichiro Suzuki, Bobby Valentine, and Sadaharu Oh, the Japanese homerun king. Whether you are a Yankees or a Red Sox fan, a sports or an enthusiast of Japanese culture, “simply sit back and enjoy the wonderful stories in You Gotta Have Wa, one of the most unusual baseball books of the season” (The New York Times). “A wonderfully entertaining look at baseball and wa.” —Time “A terrific, fast-paced account of Japanese baseball.” —Chicago Tribune “A funny look at baseball in Japan that is as much a work of cultural anthropology as a sports book.” —Playboy
The nuns of St Ursula's Convent, led by the Prioress, Sister Jeanne, accused Urbain Grandier, Vicar of Loudon, of sorcery. He was tried, tortured and burned. On this baldly terrible foundation, Whiting has built a powerful, complex play, interweaving the personal dilemmas of Jeanne and Grandier with the political necessities of the time. Although it is set between 1623-34, essentially it is no more a period play than Miller's The Crucible.6 women, 13 men
This book provides a far-sighted perspective on the role of wearable and wireless systems for movement disorder evaluation, such as Parkinson’s disease and Essential tremor. These observations are brought together in the application of quantified feedback for deep brain stimulation systems using the wireless accelerometer and gyroscope of a smartphone to determine tuning efficacy. The perspective of the book ranges from the pioneering application of these devices, such as the smartphone, for quantifying Parkinson’s disease and Essential tremor characteristics, to the current state of the art. Dr. LeMoyne has published multiple first-of-their-kind applications using smartphones to quantify movement disorder, with associated extrapolation to portable media devices.
An engaging pictorial history of the Slovak community in Chicagoland, documenting their journeys and struggles through rare and vintage images. The story of Slovak Americans in Chicagoland is a tale of the American dream. In a few short years, emigrants from Slovakia with little to their names came to the United States and succeeded beyond their highest hopes. This fascinating story of "rags to riches" has been documented in historical photographs in Images of America: Slovaks of Chicagoland. Many Slovaks came to America with few assets, no more than a sixth-grade education, and no knowledge of the English language. They went to school and became naturalized citizens. Many took menial jobs in stockyards, steel mills, and oil refineries. They saved their money and opened grocery stores, banks, construction firms, and other businesses. Slovaks built beautiful churches, quality schools, and recreational facilities. They raised their families to be proud Americans and incorporated traditions from Slovakia into their daily lives, including the important role of religion.
An American major league baseball player describes his experiences playing the great American pastime in Japan, discussing the bad calls, bad vibes, and bad-mouthing he encountered. Reprint.
Ichiro...Nomo...Hasegawa...Hideki Matsui...one by one they have come to America and made their mark as incredibly gifted and popular ballplayers. But this new wave of athlete-led by the sensational Ichiro Suzuki, whom many refer to as the best all-around player-is just the tip of a fascinating iceberg. Illuminating a deep and very different tradition of baseball, Whiting shows why more Japanese players will be coming to America...and how they will forever transform the way our game is played. Grandly entertaining and deeply revealing, The Samurai Way of Baseball is a classic book about sports, business, and stardom-in a world that is changing before our eyes.
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