Episode 476 - To Have My Deeds Known
How did one man's determination to get paid end up producing one of the best records we have of a pivotal moment in Japanese history? Show notes here .
Episodes
History of Japan
This podcast, assembled by a former PhD student in History at the University of Washington, covers the entire span of Japanese history. Each week we'll tackle a new topic, ranging from prehistoric Japan to the modern day.
Episodes
Episode 475 - Southward, Ho! Part 4
This week: Japan's empire in Micronesia comes apart under the face of both the miscalculations of military leadership and the contradictions that had haunted it from the jump. Show notes here .
Episode 474 - Southward, Ho! Part 3
So far, we've talked about how Micronesia came under Japanese rule, but what was Japan's rule over the region like? Show notes here .
Episode 473 - Southward, Ho! Part 2
When World War I began, many among the Japanese leadership were hesistant to take advantage of the opportunity to move into Micronesia. What changed their minds, and how were they able to square a colonial government with the idealistic language of the postwar League of Nations? Show notes here .
Episode 472 - Southward, Ho! Part 1
Japan would seize control of German Micronesia in the fall of 1914, but Japanese interest in the region goes back centuries further. This week: how did Japan get from disinterest in the nebulously defined 'Southern Seas' to active military operations to take control of them? Show notes here .
Episode 471 - The Osaka Incident
This week: the bizarre story of an attempted coup in Korea that, along the way, touches on everything from Japanese liberalism to the birth of overseas empire. Show notes here .
Episode 470 - The Vaccinators, Part 2
If the first translation of a text on smallpox vaccination in Japan was finished in 1820, how did it take another 29 years for the first mass vaccination campaigns to begin? The answers involve everything from a German doctor accused of being a spy to networks of physicians trying to navigate obscure bureaucracy. And they might remind you more of the last few years than you'd think. Show notes here .
Episode 469 - The Vaccinators, Part 1
This week: the elimination of smallpox is probably one of the greatest medical accomplishments in human history. The vaccine that made it possible, however, was invented during a time of isolation for Japan. So how did the vaccine make it to Japanese shores, and what does that story tell us about public health, the sharing of information, and the nature of society in late feudal Japan? Show notes here ....
Episode 468 - To Eat Their Own
This week, we're looking at the implosion of the Japanese New Left with a focus on the factional conflicts of the Zengakuren. How did a student youth movement end up divided into 20+ factions, the two largest of which engaged in a multi-decade war of assasination and street violence against each other? And how might that be connected to the general decline of Japan's left-wing opposition more broadly? Show notes here ....
Episode 467 - The Cause of Peace
This week, we're looking at a very different kind of 60s protest movement: an attempt to build a cross-sectarian, non-ideological movement to oppose the American war in Vietnam. How did the anti-Vietnam War movement emerge in its Japan, and how did it simultaneously grow to a massive size and fail to have any appreciable political impact? Show notes here .
Episode 466 - Rebels Without a Cause, Part 2
This week, for the final episode of 2022: the Zenkyoto movement arrives at Japan's largest private school. Plus: how did a movement that grew so big so quickly fall apart just as fast? Show notes here .
Episode 465 - Rebels Without a Cause, Part 1
This week, we're beginning a month on radical activism in the 1960s with a look at the student uprisings of 1968. Today is all about where those uprisings came from, how they're related to the "two Zens" of the 1960s, and the specific example of the University of Tokyo, where a debate about student medical internships turned into a violent and bloody battle between leftist student groups. Show notes here ....
Episode 464 - The Wolves of Mibu
This week: a long-requested dive into the ronin police force known as the Shinsengumi. Who were the members of this group, and how, despite their rather marginal role in the history of the 1860s, have they become one of the most famous organizations in Japanese history? Show notes here .
Episode 463 - The Afterlives of a Samurai
This week is all about a biography of a fascinating figure of the Meiji Restoration: Oguri Tadamasa. But it's also about much more: about how the present shapes our view of the past, and about how, as a result, the ways we talk about someone long dead can shift and change as well. Show notes here .
Episode 462 - The Empty Throne, Part 5
This week, we wrap up our imperial biographies with a look at the Meiji Emperor's relationship to three important aspects of his reign: the constitution, the wars fought in his name, and his heir. Plus, we talk Meiji's death, and his legacy. Note: no episode next week for American Thanksgiving; show notes here .
Episode 461 - The Empty Throne, Part 4
This week: the life of the Meiji Emperor in the turbulent 1870s and 1880s. We'll cover everything from the birth of his first surviving child to his drinking habits to his role in various political crises to the complicated process of shaping what a "modern" emperor's role even was. Show notes here .
Episode 460 - The Empty Throne, Part 3
This week: the boy emperor Meiji takes responsibility for Japan's future. But what did that mean in practice? What does an emperor, especially a boy emperor, actually do? Show notes here .
Episode 459 - The Empty Throne, Part 2
This week: Emperor Komei attempts to protect tradition in a nation beset by crisis. However, his efforts will be brought short by his untimely death, and the reigns of power passed to his untested boy successor: Meiji. Show notes here .
Episode 458 - The Empty Throne, Part 1
This week: the beginning of a multipart biography of two of the best documented figures we know very little about: Emperor Komei, and his son and heir Meiji, whose name would end up defining one of the most important eras in Japanese history. Show notes here .
Episode 457 - The Purple Robe Incident
This week: political infighting about purple robes and what it can tell us about Buddhism, political power, and the relationship of religion and the state. Plus, a brief biography of Takuan, a man who is famous for far more than the pickled radishes named after him! Show notes here .
No new episode this week
Hello all: due to my very first COVID-19 infection, there won't be a new episode this week. We'll be back as normal next week.
Episode 456 - Stranger in the Shogun's City
This week: the story of Tsuneno, a commoner whose social status was very different from that of Lady Nijo and Ogimachi Machiko, but whose struggle to define herself and decide her own destiny feels very familiar. Show notes here .
Episode 455 - In the Shelter of the Pine
This week, the tale of Ogimachi Machiko--the aristocrat whose literary descriptions of her life in a samurai family became one of the most popular works of women's literature during Japan's Edo period. Show notes here .
Episode 454 - That All my Dreams Might Not Prove Empty
This week: in 1940, a manuscript lost for over 600 years is recovered from the archives of the Imperial family. Within it lies the story of a fascinating woman, and her journey from imperial concubine to Buddhist nun--a journey that covers everything from high politics to the lives of common folk. Show notes here .
Episode 453 - The Waves are High but the Day is Clear, Part 2
This week: how has the JMSDF gone from an afterthought to a central part of Japan's security planning? Show notes here .
Episode 452 - The Waves are High but the Day is Clear, Part 1
This week: the start of a two part series on the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Forces. Today: how did Japan's current navy grow out of its old one, and what does that say about the force's relationship with Japan's prewar past? Show notes here .
Episode 451 - Those Swept Away
This week, the biography of one of the most unusual figures of Bakumatsu Japan: the peasant Matsuo Taseko, whose career as a member of the imperial loyalist movement defied conventions of gender and defies neat categorization today. Show notes here .
Episode 450 - Gimme that Old Time Religion
This week, we're covering the rise of the Hirata school of kokugaku, or national studies, during the Edo Period. How did an intellectual movement devoted to linguistics become a powerful political, social, and arguably religious force by the end of samurai rule--and why did that movement fall from power after just a few short years of influence? Show notes here .
Bonus Episode - The Chishima Incident
Enjoy this bonus episode from my other show, Criminal Records, as the podcast takes a week off!
Episode 449 - The Tastemaker
This week: the career and legacy of the most influential Japanese poet you've probably never heard of, Fujiwara no Teika. Teika's views on poetry and literature have shaped how we read those genres down to the present day, so how did he develop such authority in the field? Show notes here .