"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 ViceCritically acclaimed author and longtime Japan resident Robert Whiting turns his attention to the fascinating stories of foreigners who made waves and achieved notoriety in pos...

In 1945, as part of the Occupation forces sent to postwar Japan Nick Zappetti, a native of Italian East Harlem, entered a world as strange as any he had ever know, In postwar Tokyo, however, he realised there were certain opportunities.He had a failed stint as a professional wrestler, and participated in a fumbled (but famous) diamond heist. He was deported but managed to return with the assistance of the Mafia. Then Nick opened a pizza joint in what would be the centre of Tokyo's ...

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 gi...

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 w...

In a world where natural disasters are increasingly impacting our lives, this insightful book brings together a variety of voices to discuss how we can respond practically and faithfully to such tragedies.Consciously making room for the perspectives of survivors, responders, and academics, it provides a multi-layered and compassionate examination of a difficult and often underexplored subject. As we try to make sense of a seemingly chaotic world that features earth...

60 years of observation: an American journalist’s memoir about Tokyo’s modern urban transformation, its criminal underworld and, oh yes, baseball.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, T...

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 h...

In the sixteenth century, the people of England witnessed the physical transformation of their most valued buildings: their parish churches. This is the first ever full-scale investigation of the dramatic changes experienced by the English parish church during the English Reformation. By drawing on a wealth of documentary evidence, including court records, wills and church wardens' accounts, and by examining the material remains themselves - such as screens, fonts, paintings, monuments, wi...

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 d...

Why Should You Learn C++ at the Very Least?Even if you want to use higher-level languages as your primary toolC++ is the foundation of today's AI sector. AI scientists and data analysts may favor simple language bindings such as Python, but any serious project must employ C++ as its foundation.Furthermore, many firms in the autonomous driving field will continue to employ it in th...

This book showcases recent findings on the effects of air pollution on the brain throughout the lifespan, describing different types of pollutants, the mechanisms involved in brain impacts, and a description of the brain diseases associated with exposure. The major authorities in the field present the first book on this topic of growing interest with new information just now becoming available. Among the topics explored are cellular mechanisms induced by air pollution, effects of air pollu...

In an era where leadership in higher education is increasingly overshadowed by identity politics and institutional inaction, this timely volume offers a critical examination of the leadership vacuum that has quietly become the norm. Universities around the world are grappling with the normalization of ineffectual leadership practices that are normalized and rarely challenged.Inclusive and Innovative Leadership in Higher Education brings together a diverse array of voices a...