On this week's episode of Departures with Robert Amsterdam we're pleased to invite our friend and colleague of many years Jakob Edberg, the co-founder of The GR Company, a government relations consultancy headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, and with offices in Osaka, Seoul, London, and Washington DC.

Jakob's unique perspective on the rapidly evolving leadership role of Japan in the region and, increasingly, in global affairs are shaped by more than 20 years of experience advising some of the world's largest companies on politically sensitive matters in the region.

According to Edberg, Japan's new role as a primary actor and top ally of the United States has been an intentional and gradual process dating back to before Shinzo Abe's ascedency and the current diplomacy-forward administration of Prime Minister Fumio Kishida.

Among the slew of books that have come out recently on the war in Ukraine, there are few which take as broad a scope of the human experience of the soldiers, victims, and communities living on the front than the latest entry written by the war correspondent Christopher Miller.

In his book, "The War Came To Us: Life and Death in Ukraine," Miller bears witness to the brutality of this remarkable, unprecedented conflict, bringing the stories of those involved with profound empathy and vivid detail - not only from pivotal scenes on the front, but also going back more than a decade to the seeds of the war, the meaning of Ukraine's struggle for nationhood, and the propulsive resilience that binds the survivors from Bucha to Bakhmut and Mariupol and beyond.

In this conversation about his book with Departures host Robert Amsterdam, the FT correspondent comments: "I think this is a war that is more black and white than any war we have experienced since the Second World War. I do think this is a war that is more 'good vs. evil' than anything we have seen in the last 80 years."

In explaining his approach to war reporting and the complexity of objectivity in the midst of violent conflict, Miller comments: "I think it is powerful enough in some cases to explain what you are witnessing. In the book, I was able to do some things that I am not able to do in my daily reporting, which is to provide some context, some personal context and analysis based on my personal experiences and knowledge. (...) I do try to separate myself from the events, but there are moments where you just can't. Sometimes you do have to help, sometimes that means carrying someone. (...) At that point you can't say, 'sorry, I am a reporter.'"

A truly outstanding book from one of the greatest young war correspondents of our current era, we hope that listeners of Departures will pick up a copy.

From the late-nineteenth century until the mid-1930s, Vienna was Europe's undisputed powerhouse of ideas. But along with the exhilirating achievements of Freud, Wittgenstein, Mahler, and Klimt, there were also darker forces emerging in parallel which have had their own negative impact on modernity, from organized anti-Semitism to ethnonationalism ideologies.

These complex tensions are explored in detail in Richard Cockett's excellent new book, "Vienna: How the City of Ideas Created the Modern World." In this discussion with Robert Amsterdam, Cockett explains how the Habsburg emperor, Franz Joseph, permitted such intellectual flourishing to occur, as the rapid influx of Jews and other groups and their assimilation into the Austrian middle class via commercial and educational success augmented intellectual curiosity, discovery, and experimentation throughout the city. Viennese café and salon culture also helped to foster schools of thought, as students and professors would furiously debate disputed major questions of the day into the wee hours.

The conditions for this fervent intellectual incubation of course was not to last, and we're all aware of what followed. Cockett's thoughtful history of the city in this period highlights what we can learn about encouraging greater intellectual vitality, pluralism, and civilizational development.