Paul Bacon

In 2001, Paul Bacon was a typical young guy in New York: overeducated, liberal, hip, a little aimless. But when 9/11 came, he was galvanized into action. Feeling that he had to do something to help his fellow man, he raced to Ground Zero, where he stood around for several days before finally realizing that he had no skills that were of any use in a crisis. So he applied to the fire department-and was summarily rejected; he was too old, they said, and he couldn't do any pull-ups. So he decided to take what was available to him: He joined the NYPD. Bad Cop is Bacon's hilarious and thoughtful memoir of his three years among New York's Finest. Beginning with his tenure in the police academy (where he's mostly interested in pursuing the lovely cadet Clarabel - until he finds a surprising new love in the form of his service .357), it follows him through a reluctant apprenticeship and out onto the streets, where the sensitive former graphic designer is transformed into a rough-and-tumble Harlem beat cop. Brimming with great set pieces and amazing characters, this is both a love letter and a send-up of the squad that keeps New York safe - sometimes.

New York's Least Likely Police Officer Tells All

Bad Cop

Hartmut Mayer

Hidetoshi Nakamura

The EU and Japan have one of the most important trade relationships in the world. Fittingly, this book presents a detailed analysis of their bilateral regulatory environment and negotiation processes. Moreover, the two polities have also co-operated extensively in bilateral and multilateral contexts on a range of global governance issues. Nevertheless, the relationship is widely acknowledged to have significant untapped potential. Deploying the concept of civilian power, the book takes a fresh, honest and provocative look at this important relationship, in a post-Fukushima, post-sovereign debt crisis world. First the book analyses the place of EU-Japan relations within the worldviews of the Japanese and European bodies politic. Subsequently, three thematic sections evaluate their cooperation on such issues as trade, energy security, environmental politics, development, human rights, post-conflict reconstruction, health and biosecurity. The eminent scholars of the EU-Japan relationship gathered in this book offer informed, empirically rich and policy-relevant insights into the present and future prospects for the relationship.

A New Chapter in Civilian Power Cooperation?

The European Union and Japan

Christopher Hobson

Japan has been one of the most important international sponsors of human security, yet the concept has hitherto not been considered relevant to the Japanese domestic context. This book applies the human security approach to the specific case of the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear accident that struck Japan on 11 March 2011, which has come to be known as Japan's ‘triple disaster’. This left more than 15,000 people dead and was the most expensive natural disaster in recorded history. The book identifies the many different forms of human insecurity that were produced or exacerbated within Japan by the triple disaster. Each chapter adds to the contemporary literature by identifying the vulnerability of Japanese social groups and communities, and examining how they collectively seek to prevent, respond to and recover from disaster. Emphasis is given to analysis of the more encouraging signs of human empowerment that have occurred. Contributors draw on a wide range of perspectives, from disciplines such as: disaster studies, environmental studies, gender studies, international relations, Japanese studies, philosophy and sociology. In considering this Japanese case study in detail, the book demonstrates to researchers, postgraduate students, policy makers and practitioners how the concept of human security can be practically applied at a policy level to the domestic affairs of developed countries, countering the tendency to regard human security as exclusively for developing states.

Responding to the 2011 earthquake, tsunami and Fukushima nuclear crisis

Human Security and Japan’s Triple Disaster

Paul Bacon's first book charts four months he spent in the frozen reaches in Mongolia. It details the unique country both through his work there as a journalist and through his travels and adventures around the country.

Escaping the Ice-Prison

Robin Cameron

"Human security" is an approach that rejects the traditional prioritization of state security, and instead identifies the individual as the primary referent of security. It offers a way of broadening our perspective, and recognizing that the most pressing threats to individuals do not come from interstate war, but from the emergencies that affect people every day, such as famine, disease, displacement, civil conflict and environmental degradation. Human security is about people living their lives with dignity, being free from "fear" and "want". To date, there has been a strong tendency to focus on insecurity caused by civil conflict, with less attention on issues to do with environmental security. This volume addresses the threat posed by natural disasters, which represent an increasingly major human security threat to people everywhere. In looking at natural disasters, this book also refines the human security approach. It does so through developing its previously unexplored interdisciplinary potential. This volume explicitly seeks to bring the human security approach into conversation with contributions from a range of disciplines: development, disaster sociology, gender studies, international law, international relations, philosophy, and public health. Collectively these scholars unpack the "human" element of "natural" disasters. In doing so, an emphasis is placed on how pre-existing vulnerabilities can be gravely worsened, as well as the interconnected nature of human security threats. The book presents a variety of case studies that include the Indian Ocean tsunami, Hurricane Katrina, the 2010 Haiti earthquake, and the 2011 "triple disasters" in Japan.

Paul Bacon

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