Bøker av Tom Feiling

No sex. No kids. No future? When Tom Feiling moved to Tokyo as a student in the early nineties, Japan was a beacon of the future: a rising superpower, a technology giant, a global symbol of prosperity, civility and success. When he returned twenty-four years later, the country was still a sign of things to come-but, he began to realize, it was no longer a beacon. It was a warning. This is a unique account of contemporary Japan, which travels from the quiet of its furthest flung villages to the aspiration and dynamism of its cities. It tells the story of how, from the mid-seventies onwards, Japanese society unknowingly embarked on a vast, silent process of transformation that is still unfolding today. It is still peaceful; it is still prosperous. But the Japanese population is dwindling at an alarming rate. As things stand, Japan's populace will shrink by a third with each new generation; by 2070 it will have lost the equivalent of the entire population outside of Tokyo, Osaka and Nagoya. Travelling through shrines and bars, rice fields and mango farms, coffee shops and old peoples' homes, Feiling meets with those affected by, and driving, this transformation. Through countless interviews and extensive research, he weaves together a powerful account of how and why men and women are ceasing to pair off and have kids. He reveals how sexual appetites and behaviours are both shaped by, and reshaping the evolving economy, and he considers both the dangers and the opportunities of the rise in solo living in Japan-and beyond. For although this is a Japanese story, it will soon be playing out all around the world. A low birth rate, an ageing society, and a shrinking population are visible everywhere from Spain to South Korea. Japan is simply further down the line. So this really is a journey to the future: sex robots and herbivorous men are now Japanese phenomena, but they may soon be coming for us all.

Long forgotten in England, Providence Island is a microcosm of the 400-year-old Atlantic story, a narrative of colonial struggle and empire, slavery and drugs, pirates and puritans and amazing reversals of fortunes. At once intimate and global, this book casts new light on the part England played in the making of the modern world.

For decades, Colombia was the 'narcostate'. Now it's seen as one of the rising stars of the global economy. Where does the truth lie? How did a land likened to paradise by the first conquistadores become a byword for hell on earth? And how is it rebuilding itself after decades of violence?

Cocaine is big business and getting bigger. Governments spend millions on an unwinnable war against it, yet it's now the drug of choice in the West. How did the cocaine economy get so huge? Who keeps it running behind the scenes?In The Candy Machine Tom Feiling travels the trade routes from Colombia via Miami, Kingston and Tijuana to London and New York. He meets Medillin hitmen, US kingpins, Brazilian traffickers, and talks to soldiers and narcotics officers who fight the gangs and cartels. He traces cocaine's progress from legal 'pick-me-up' to luxury product to global commodity, looks at legalization programmes in countries such as Switzerland, and shows how America's anti-drugs crusade is actually increasing demand.Cutting through the myths about the white market, this is the story of cocaine as it's never been told before.