Richard J. Samuels is Ford International Professor of Political Science and Director of the Center for International Studies. He is also the Founding Director of the MIT Japan Program. In 2001 he became Chairman of the Japan-US Friendship Commission, an independent Federal grant-making agency that supports Japanese studies and policy-oriented research in the United States. In 2005 he was elected a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Professor Samuels served as Head of the MIT Department of Political Science between 1992-1997 and as Vice-Chairman of the Committee on Japan of the National Research Council until 1996. Grants from the Fulbright Commission, the Abe Fellowship Fund, the National Science Foundation, and the Smith Richardson Foundation have supported nine years of field research in Japan.
Dr. Samuels' book, Securing Japan, was published in 2007 by Cornell University Press.
His previous books include Machiavelli's Children: Leaders and Their Legacies in Italy and Japan, a comparative political and economic history of political leadership in Italy and Japan, "Rich Nation, Strong Army": National Security and the Technological Transformation of Japan, The Business of the Japanese State: Energy Markets in Comparative and Historical Perspective, and Politics of Regional Policy in Japan.
His articles have appeared in International Organization, Foreign Affairs, International Security, The Journal of Modern Italian Studies, The Journal of Japanese Studies, Daedalus, The Washington Quarterly, and other scholarly journals.
Dr. Samuels received his PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1980.
Securing Japan: Tokyo's Grand Strategy and the Future of East Asia
(Cornell University Press, 2007)
Finalist, 2008 Lionel Gelber Prize for best book in international affairs.
Examination of Japan's current strategic choices and how they are linked to enduring ideas about national security.
Machiavelli's Children: Leaders and Their Legacies in Italy and Japan
(Cornell University Press, 2003)
Winner of the 2004 Marraro prize from the Society for Italian Historical Studies.
Winner of the 2004 Jervis-Schroeder Prize of the American Political Science Association.
Comparative political and economic history of political leadership in Italy and Japan.
reviews | table of contents | introduction (pdf)
(Cornell University Press, 1996)
Winner of the 1996 John Whitney Hall Prize
Historical review of the Japanese technology process, the aerospace industry, and relations between the military and civilian economies.
Encyclopedia of United States National Secuity 
(Sage Publications, 2005)
Comprehensive introduction to some of the more complicated and abstract questions concerning world politics and national security.
Crisis and Innovation in Asian Technology
Edited by William W. Keller and Richard J. Samuels (Cambridge Univ Press, 2003)
Read Chapter 1, "Innovation in Asian Economies" (pdf, 1866K, 23p)
Investigation of Asian states' response to economic and political upheaval resulting from 1997 financial crisis.
The Business of the Japanese State
(Cornell Univ Press, 1987)
Winner of the Masayoshi Ohira Memorial Book Prize
Study of Japanese energy markets in comparative and historical perspective.
The Politics of Regional Policy in Japan 
(Princeton University Press, 1983)
Exploration of local autonomy in a centralized state.
