William L Brooks

Background and Education

William Brooks has been an adjunct professor at Johns Hopkins University since 2009, after retiring from the US Department of State. For 15 years, he served as head of the US Embassy in Japan’s media analysis and translation unit, responsible for analyzing the impact of Japanese media trends on US interests. Dr. Brooks had two earlier postings to Embassy Tokyo’s economic section and also served at the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research. He has a doctorate from Columbia University and taught history at the university level before entering government service. Since retiring, he has written three monographs -- The Politics of the Futenma Base Issue in Okinawa: Relocation Negotiations in 1995-97, 2005-2006 (SAIS, 2010), Cracks in the Alliance (SAIS, 2011), and Politics and Trade Policy in Japan (SAIS, 2015) and is writing a book on Japanese politics. Dr. Brooks also has translated from the Japanese three books of poetry and three philosophical works. In 2012, he taught at Kyung-Hee University in South Korea during the summer, and in 2014, he was a visiting scholar at Waseda University in Japan during the summer session. He teaches a course at Johns Hopkins SAIS, US-Japan Relations in Global Context, in which the students write research papers, which are compiled into the Reischauer Center’s published yearbook on the current state of US-Japan relations.