TalkThursday 28 February 2013
6:00pm – 7:30pm
Will the Aftermath of Fukushima Make the Japanese Think Big?
Drinks reception from 7:30pm
13/14 Cornwall Terrace, London, NW1 4QP
Organised by The Daiwa-Anglo Japanese Foundation
Christopher Lloyd’s best-selling world history book What on Earth Happened? was published in Japanese at the end of 2012 and has become an instant non-fiction best-seller. The new Japanese edition includes a section on the recent 3/11 Fukushima disaster. In November 2012, Christopher was invited by NHK Television to go and see the disaster zone and the nearby communities for himself. His visit was featured for 10 minutes on the evening news programme News Watch 9. Christopher discovered an extraordinary transformation by some members of the community, in particular after meeting the local town barber Mr Kato. The visit inspired Christopher to wonder if the trauma of Fukushima may yet provoke the Japanese people into thinking big about their future and to pioneer a modern lifestyle that has a more harmonious, robust relationship with nature. After delivering a lecture in Tokyo at the prestigious Kudan High School, Christopher met many young people and asked them about their views on Japanese politics, the media and the country’s future post-Fukushima. Christopher gave this talk to the Daiwa Foundation to report on his findings, to discuss big history in respect to the Japanese people and their culture and the shock of Fukushima. Christopher signed copies of his world history books which were available for sale after the event. Here is a link to an article by the author in The Telegraph.
About the contributors
Christopher Lloyd
Christopher Lloyd is a British author, lecturer and educationalist. He was educated at Cambridge University and graduated with a double first class degree in History. He then went on to become Science and Technology correspondent for The Sunday Times in London winning the Technology Journalist of the Year award in 1994. In 2006, Christopher and his wife Virginia home educated their two daughters for five years. The experience stimulated Christopher to write books on Big History, trying to connect subjects together through narrative and visualisation. His books include the best-selling world history book (now in 15 languages): What on Earth Happened?: The Complete Story of Planet, Life and People from the Big Bang to the Present Day and What on Earth Evolved?: 100 Species that Changed the World as well as a series of three fold-out What on Earth? wallbooks. Christopher’s first world history book was recently published in Japanese (Bungeishunjū Ltd.) and has become a non-fiction best-seller. Christopher visited Japan in November 2012 to see for himself the devastation and aftermath of the Fukushima tsunami and nuclear disaster. Christopher currently divides his time between writing books, journalism, and lecturing all over the world in schools, colleges, museums and literary festivals.
Baroness Walmsley
Baroness Walmsley (Chair) is Co-Chair of the Liberal Democrat Back Bench Committee on Education, Families and Young People, Vice-Chairman of the All Party Parliamentary Group for Children and she is also Children, Schools and Families Spokesperson in the Lords. She has worked in the health service and in secondary teaching, and then went into public relations. It was in 1986 that she became politically active in the Liberal Party when her late husband Chris Walmsley was the candidate in the famous West Derbyshire by-election. Since then she has held numerous posts in local Parties, as a constituency chair, fundraiser, press officer, agent and PPC. In the wider party she has served on the Federal Executive, Federal Conference Committee and the North West Regional Executive. She stood for Parliament in 1992 and 1997 and in the European elections of 1999. She has also been involved in policy development especially in the area of family and children policy, she chaired the working group on Early Years, which wrote the policy paper “Fair Foundations,” and was a member of the group that produced the childcare policy document “Stronger Families, Brighter Futures.”