Seminar Series 2014Wednesday 19 February 2014
6:00pm – 7:30pm
The Power of Information and Knowledge
Drinks reception from 8:30pm
13/14 Cornwall Terrace, Outer Circle, London NW1 4QP
Organised by The Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation
This first seminar of our 2014 series on the theme of “Power” will focus on the relationship between information and society, and how the understanding and use of information have been the primary factors in the development and character of the modern age.
The Japanese government has recently passed a new Secrecy Law in the face of strong protests from intellectuals and journalists. Is this law going to threaten the rights to knowledge of the Japanese people? Does it put journalists in danger of imprisonment for acquiring national secrets? The law gives the government fairly broad scope to withhold information by labelling it a “special secret” whenever it deems it convenient to do so. Secret information must remain secret for 30 to 60 years, so the new law will also affect the work of historians.
Prominent British historian Professor Jeremy Black and the Asahi Shimbun European Bureau Chief, Mr Toshiya Umehara discussed the power of information and knowledge, and the dangers of its absence. The seminar was chaired by Professor Arthur Stockwin.
Summary of the seminar, The Power of Information and Knowledge, PDFYou can view a recording of the seminar here:
About the contributors
Jeremy Black MBE
Jeremy Black MBE is an historian and Professor of History at the University of Exeter. He is a senior fellow at the Center for the Study of America and the West at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. He is the author of over ninety books, especially on eighteenth century British politics and international relations, and is a major exponent of military, diplomatic and cartographic history. He has been important in helping the British to look at their past, as well as in representing British history to foreign audiences. His latest book is called The Power of Knowledge: How Information and Technology Made the Modern World, which focuses on the relationship between information and society, and demonstrating how the understanding and use of information have been the primary factors in the development and character of the modern age.
Toshiya Umehara
Toshiya Umehara is London Bureau Chief and European Editor of The Asahi Shimbun, a leading Japanese newspaper. Mr. Umehara holds a B.A. in politics from International Christian University. He joined Asahi Shimbun in 1988 and has been engaging in international news reporting since the 1990s, having been posted to locations such as Brussels, Vienna and Washington DC. He has conducted interviews with many foreign officials such as Colin Powell and William Hague. He has covered many conflicts including Kosovo and Iraq, directly from the conflict zones. In early 2011 he led a team of writers who broke stories on US diplomatic cables on Japan, in cooperation with Wikileaks. From September 2011 to April 2012 he was a national news desk editor in Tokyo, overseeing stories on disaster prevention and Fukushima aftermath. During that period he also edited the renowned series “Nuclear Power and Media”.
Professor Arthur Stockwin (Chair)
Professor Arthur Stockwin (Chair) is Emeritus Fellow of St. Antony’s College and the Nissan Institute of Japanese Studies, University of Oxford. His publications include: Dictionary of the Modern Politics of Japan (Routledge, 2003) and Collected Writings of J.A.A. Stockwin (Routledge, 2004). Professor Stockwin is General Editor of the Nissan Institute/Routledge Japanese Studies series. In 2004, he received The Order of the Rising Sun from the Japanese Government in recognition of his tireless efforts to promote Japanese Studies in the UK.