Ian Buruma Book order

Ian Buruma explores the life and death of Baruch Spinoza, the Enlightenment thinker whose belief in freedom of thought and speech resonates in our own time

The book delves into the complexities of collaboration during World War II, examining the moral ambiguities that exist between heroism and opportunism. It interweaves the narratives of three distinct figures—Kawashima Yoshiko, Felix Kersten, and Friedrich Weinreb—who navigated the challenges of living under Nazi and Japanese control. Through their stories, the text invites readers to reflect on the choices made in dire circumstances and the varying motivations behind collaboration.

Did Friedrich Weinreb help his fellow Jews to escape occupied Holland, or did he defraud them of their money before betraying them to the Nazis? The historian Ian Buruma investigates the disputed legacy of this plausible chancer, along with that of Himmlerâ€s Finnish masseur Felix Kersten, and cross-dressing Kawashima Yoshiko, who spied for the Japanese in China and, less fortunate than the others, was executed after the war.

Original research and new translations highlight a crucial era in the life and artistic journey of a renowned German Expressionist. The book features previously unpublished artworks that provide insight into the complexities and challenges faced by the artist during this significant period.

A brilliant and insightful history of the special relationship between the UK and the USA, which Ian Buruma argues is now under threat with the election of Donald Trump and Brexit.

Ian Buruma's unflinching account of his journey into the heart of Tokyo's underground culture as a young man in the 1970s.

The narrative explores the profound love between Ian Buruma's grandparents, highlighting their resilience amidst the turmoil and separation caused by two world wars. It delves into the complexities of family history, revealing how their bond endured through adversity and shaped their identities. The account captures both the beauty and the challenges of their relationship, offering a poignant reflection on love's ability to transcend even the darkest times in history.

Ian Buruma's moving and powerful story of his grandparents' enduring love through the terror and separation of two world wars, through the letters they wrote throughout their sixty-year marriage. Bernard was stationed in India as an army doctor, while Win struggled through wartime privation to hold her family together, including twelve Jewish children they had rescued from Nazi Germany.

The pivotal year of 1945 serves as a backdrop for a transformative global history, detailing how nations rebuilt and redefined themselves after the devastation of World War II. The narrative explores the significant political, social, and economic changes that shaped the post-war landscape, highlighting key events and figures that influenced the emergence of a new world order. Through a comprehensive analysis, the book captures the complexities and challenges faced by countries as they navigated this critical period in history.

Ian Buruma is fascinated, he writes, “by what makes the human species behave atrociously.” In Theater of Cruelty the acclaimed author of The Wages of Guilt and Year Zero: A History of 1945 once again turns to World War II to explore that question—to the Nazi occupation of Paris, the Allied bombing of German cities, the international controversies over Anne Frank’s diaries, Japan’s militarist intellectuals and its kamikaze pilots. One way that people respond to power and cruelty, Buruma argues, is through art, and the art that most interests him reveals the dark impulses beneath the veneer of civilized behavior. This is what draws him to German and Japanese artists such as Max Beckmann, George Grosz, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Mishima Yukio, and Yokoo Tadanori, as well as to filmmakers such as Werner Herzog, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Kurosawa Kiyoshi, and Hans-Juergen Syberberg. All were affected by fascism and its terrible consequences; all “looked into the abyss and made art of what they saw.” Whether he is writing in this wide-ranging collection about war, artists, or film—or about David Bowie’s music, R. Crumb’s drawings, the Palestinians of the West Bank, or Asian theme parks—Ian Buruma brings sympathetic historical insight and shrewd aesthetic judgment to understanding the diverse ways that people deal with violence and cruelty in life and in art. Theater of Cruelty includes eight pages of color and black & white images.