Chris Goto-Jones was educated at the Universities of Cambridge, Keio, and Oxford. He is the Inaugural Chair Professor of Comparative Philosophy and Political Thought at Universiteit Leiden, Professorial Research Associate at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, and a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Oxford. He was previously Professor of Modern Japan Studies, Director of the Modern East Asia Research Centre, Leiden, and Founding Dean of Leiden University College, The Hague. In addition, he is an Associate of the Inner Magic Circle. He is co-founder of the 'Political and Philosophical Arts Initiative' and a 'VICI' laureate of the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO). He has published widely in the fields of political thought, comparative philosophy, and Asian studies; in terms of popularizing publications, he is author of A Very Short Introduction to Modern Japan (2009), which has been translated into many languages worldwide.