Welcome to the
website of Bill Emmott
I am a writer and consultant best known for my 13 years as editor-in-chief of The Economist (1993-2006) as well as for my books and films on Japan and Italy. My latest book, ‘Japan’s Far More Female Future’ was published in Japanese in summer 2019 and will come out in an expanded English edition in September 2020. The book analyses the economic impact of the growing number of females in higher education in Japan. These days, I am a “Brexile” living in Ireland, though I also spend time in Oxford, and am chairman of the Wake Up Foundation, a charity I co-founded with the film-maker Annalisa Piras, as well as of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, the Japan Society of the UK, and Trinity College Dublin’s Long Room Hub Arts & Humanities Research Institute. This site carries my articles, videos, speeches and books, as well as my 2050 Index looking at the long-term strengths and prospects of western societies.
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Lessons from Abe for Europe
29.08.20 Publication: La Stampa
All political careers end in failure. That saying, by a famous British Conservative politician of the 1970s, Enoch Powell, applies especially to those...
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Review : The Iconoclast – Shinzo Abe & the New Japan
29.08.20
With Abe Shinzo’s sudden resignation as prime minister, again on health grounds as after his first short period in office in 2007, it is right to ask what...
Read moreThe Japan Shinzo Abe has left Behind
28.08.20 Publication: Project Syndicate
DUBLIN – Shinzo Abe’s sudden resignation (on health grounds) ends the tenure of Japan’s longest-serving prime minister. The country’s most...
Read moreJapan Society Chairman’s Blog – 15
24.07.20
Historians will tell us that four months is far too short a time for permanent social or behavioural changes to occur, even if the pandemic already feels as if...
Read moreThe 2050 Index
In too many countries, politics and policy making is addicted to the short term. To help foster the longer-term thinking we all need, in 2017 I worked out this index, together with James Fransham of The Economist, which ranks 35 advanced western countries according to 25 different measures, grouped under the themes of demography, knowledge, innovation, globalization and resilience. I will be publishing an updated version in 2019.
See the 2050 IndexLatest Film: Lecture at University of Tokyo, May 15th 2019
Latest Book
Japan’s Far More Female Future
Until now, Japan’s politics, economy and society have been dominated by men. The future promises to be different, as demographic realities and the growing number of women graduating from higher education since the early 1990s steadily change organisational structures and culture. How well the country adapts to this will determine whether in the 2020s, 30s […]
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