Bill is also known for his many books on Japan, which began with the bestselling The Sun Also Sets: The Limits to Japan's Economic Power (1989).
He is now chair of the Japan Society of the UK, of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, and of Trinity College Dublin’s Long Room Hub for Arts & Humanities, is co-director of the Global Commission for Post-Pandemic Policy, and is a member of the Comitato Scientifico of the Centro Einaudi in Turin.
In 2017–18 he was a Visiting Fellow at All Souls College, Oxford; he is an Honorary Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford, and is an Ushioda Fellow of Tokyo College at the University of Tokyo. He is also a member of the University of Tokyo’s Global Advisory Board.
Bill was presenter and co-author of a documentary film about Italy, Girlfriend in a Coma (2013) and executive producer of The Great European Disaster Movie (2015), both shown on the BBC, among other broadcasters.
He is the author of 14 books on Japan, Asia, the 20th century and Italy, the latest of which was Japan’s Far More Female Future: Increasing Gender Equality and Reducing Workplace Insecurity Will Make Japan Stronger (OUP, 2020).
In 2016 Japan awarded him the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Neck Ribbon, for services to UK-Japan relations.
His research interests include the current state of Italian political economy; study of resistance to political and economic reforms in Italy and Japan, and its social origins; gender inequality in Italy and Japan; the impact of the PNRR programme of spending EU Next Generation Funds on reform acceptance in Italian society and political parties; and the nature of post-pandemic geopolitics and its impact on defence and security.
