The Franklin D. Roosevelt 

Presidential Library and Museum 

presents an author talk

and book signing with

Steve Kemper author of

OUR MAN IN TOKYO: 

AN AMERICAN AMBASSADOR

AND THE COUNTDOWN

TO PEARL HARBOR

Wednesday, November 30, 2022

at 6:00 p.m.

[in-person*] Henry A. Wallace Center

at the FDR Library and Home

CLICK HERE to register

[*local health metrics permitting]

HYDE PARK, NY -- The FDR Presidential Library and Museum will present an author talk and book signing with Steve Kemper author of OUR MAN IN TOKYO: AN AMERICAN AMBASSADOR AND THE COUNTDOWN TO PEARL HARBOR, at 6:00 p.m. on Wednesday, November 30, 2022. The program will be held in the Henry A. Wallace Center at the FDR Presidential Library and Home. This is a free, in-person* public event, but registration is required. CLICK HERE to register. [*local health metrics permitting]

Synopsis:

In 1932, Japan was in crisis. Naval officers had assassinated the prime minister and conspiracies flourished. The military had a stranglehold on the government. War with Russia loomed, and propaganda campaigns swept the country, urging schoolchildren to give money to procure planes and tanks.

Into this maelstrom stepped Joseph C. Grew, America’s most experienced and talented diplomat. When Grew was appointed ambassador to Japan, not only was the country in turmoil, its relationship with America was rapidly deteriorating. For the next decade, Grew attempted to warn American leaders about the risks of Japan’s raging nationalism and rising militarism, while also trying to stabilize Tokyo’s increasingly erratic and volatile foreign policy. From domestic terrorism by Japanese extremists to the global rise of Hitler and the fateful attack on Pearl Harbor, the events that unfolded during Grew’s tenure proved to be pivotal for Japan, and for the world. His dispatches from the darkening heart of the Japanese empire would prove prescient -- for his time, and for our own.

Drawing on Grew’s diary of his time in Tokyo as well as U.S. embassy correspondence, diplomatic dispatches, and firsthand Japanese accounts, OUR MAN IN TOKYO brings to life a man who risked everything to avert another world war, the country where he staked it all -- and the abyss that swallowed it.

Steve Kemper is a journalist and the author of A LABYRINTH OF KINGDOMS: 10,000 MILES THROUGH ISLAMIC AFRICA, A SPLENDID SAVAGE: THE RESTLESS LIFE OF FREDERICK RUSSELL BURNHAM, and CODE NAME GINGER. He has written for Smithsonian, National Geographic, National Geographic Adventure, National Geographic Traveler, Outside, Wall Street Journal, Yankee, National Wildlife, The Ecologist, Plenty, BBC Wildlife, and many other magazines and newspapers. He lives in West Hartford, Connecticut.