Ian Buruma in Prospect

On Monday 7th October, join Prospect in conversation with journalist Ian Buruma, speaking to mark the release of his new book Year Zero: A History of 1945. (Click here to buy tickets.)

Dutch-born Buruma began his career with the study of Chinese literature and Japanese film. This academic background has formed the basis of much of his journalistic work, much of which has focused on East Asia. Alongside his numerous books, including Bad Elements: Chinese Rebels from Los Angeles to Beijing and Inventing Japan: From Empire to Economic Miracle, Buruma has written for many newspapers and magazines, including the New Yorker and the New York Review of Books. He is currently Luce Professor of Democracy, Human Rights & Journalism at Bard College, New York. Buruma’s writing has earned him the Dutch Erasmus Prize, as well as a place on Foreign Policy's 2010 Top 100 Global Thinkers list.

To explore more of Buruma’s work, here is a small selection of his writing for Prospect:

1. The ghosts of Tiananmen: China’s relationship with free speech has been bloody—but two decades after the student uprising was crushed, China's rulers have more to fear from the economic crisis than they do from democratic dissidents

2. “Eric Hobsbawm: A Tory communist”: An interview with Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawm attempts to navigate his complex and contradictory position as “a decent man who served a blood-soaked cause”

3. “The cult of exile”: It seems that the role of exile has become all too attractive for several of today’s intellectuals

4. “Leaving the Speccie”: Victorian desks; a black trunk which had once belonged to Lord Salisbury; lampshades at rakish angles like Winston Churchill’s bow ties—Buruma explains how the Spectator of the 1990s was an intriguing near-parody of Englishness.

5. “Endless apologies”: Public confessions and apologies are a bad habit imported from undemocratic countries. They should stop

Click here to buy tickets to see Ian Buruma in conversation with Prospect's managing editor, Jonathan Derbyshire.