Long revered in Japan for saving Nissan from bankruptcy in 1999 and helping Renault achieve the best results in its history, Ghosn explains being transformed overnight into a pariah, torn from the world and his family as the victim of a smear campaign.

Ghosn also recounts how he built the Franco-Japanese Alliance into a global motor giant, expanding operations in markets from the United States, China and Russia to Brazil, Morocco and Thailand, becoming the world’s top automaker by volume in 2017. But his arrest in late 2018 plunges the Alliance into crisis as company share prices collapse at the same time as the global auto industry faces an unprecedented technological revolution.

Broken Alliances involves the highest levels of political power in Japan and France, describing a Japanese judicial system that resembles the Moscow show trials under Stalin in the 1930s and a dysfunctional French system constrained by a legacy of state intervention and traditional hostility towards globalization — a stance shared by ordinary people and the country’s ruling elite.

The book also addresses the reasons behind Nissan’s internal coup and questions about Ghosn’s remuneration, his management methods and his vision for the future of electric and self-driving vehicles.