historyofjapan

History of Japan Newsletter, 10/27/23 Edition

Welcome, all, to another newsletter; let's dive into it!

Japan in the News: Japan as Number...Three?

The news out of Tokyo this week is depressing but not unexpected; t...

Exciting News - Transcripts!

Hello, beloved patrons! I have an exciting announcement to share with you all. 

For a very long time I've gotten requests to do episode transcripts; unfortunately, because of the way I o...

Episode 453 - The Waves are High But the Day is Clear, Part 2

Show notes here.

This was one of the most challenging scripts I've done in a while,...

Episode 452 - The Waves are High but the Day is Clear, Part 1

This episode has its genesis in work I did for my dissertation, way back in the day. I'd initially considered doing some research on the SDF, both because it's a very understudied topic in English ...

Episode 451 - Those Swept Away

This was one of the most challenging scripts I've done in a long time, primarily because Matsuo Taseko's life is actually rather well documented (not to mention all her various and sundry biographi...

Episode 450 - Gimme That Old Time Religion

Patreon's link support appears to be broken again, so the link to the episode and show notes is 2022-08-19 17:03:59 +0000 UTC View Post

Episode 449 - The Tastemaker

So, one fun factoid about this episode: as I was going through books to pick up to do research with my generous patreon funding, I realized that the most comprehensive biography of Fujiwara no Teik...

Episode 448 - Abe, Part 5

Deep down, I did expect that eventually I'd have a reason to talk about Abe Shinzo again on this podcast. But I definitely did not expect it to be in this context.

This was definitely a hard ...

Episode 447 - On a Summer Night, The First Thought of Sleep

So, first things first: as I type this I'm putting the final touches on next week's episode, which will be about the Abe assassination. It's a pretty wide-ranging episode--I don't know about you, b...

Episode 446 - In Days of Old, There Was a Man

I read snippets of the Tales of Ise back in college in one of my Japanese literature classes, but this is my first time returning to them in well over a decade. So, first, it's nice to come back--a...

Episode 445 - A Bowl for a Coin

First: as I stated in this episode, I myself am not really a tea person (I drink it, certainly, and enjoy it, but was raised in a very pro-coffee household). So a) please forgive any tea-related mi...

Episode 444 - The Crysanthemum Taboo

The first thing I should say about this episode is that I did labor to try and find an actual copy of Furyu Mutan to read, but had a hell of a time doing so--fortunately, I was able to find an arti...

Episode 443 - The Collapse

First: sorry for the delay in posting! I've been away on a family trip and didn't have access to a laptop. 

This was a very interesting episode for me, chiefly because it reflected a lot...

Episode 442 - The Transistor Salesman

This episode and the following two have their genesis in a scrapped episode topic that morphed into something very different. I was initially planning an episode on the "Sanyu Incident," as it's ca...

Episode 441 - The Dreamer

First: apologies for the late post!  There was a technical issue on the backend I couldn't fix while I was at work.

So, this is an idea that's been percolating for me for a while, but wh...

Episode 440 - Tipping the Balance

Post available here.

The genesis for this particular episode is, of course, Royall Tyle...

Episode 439 - From the Deep, Part 2

This was a substantially more challenging episode to research than the first part of this series, in large part because there's no singular book on the subject of post-Edo whaling. I had to combine...

Episode 438 - From the Deep, Part 1

Honestly, this is a subject I've been curious about for a long time. Back when I lived in Hokkaido, one of the American-style burger chains in the area (Lucky Pierrot) served a whale burger, and I ...

Episode 437 - The Fist of the Buddhas, Part 2

I do have to admit something up front with this episode; I have a student writing a research paper on Gikeiki right now, and so I've been helping them a lot with it and have the text on my mind a g...

Episode 436 - Fist of the Buddhas, Part 1

So, I'll just start by saying that this was one of the most challenging episodes I've done in a long time. Deciding how to organize the material--and how deep to get into some pretty esoteric confl...

Episode 434 - The Wrong Kind of Hero, Part 2

Perhaps the most challenging part of this episode was not going on a long tangent about the internal politics of Tosa domain. There's a whole 'sub-plot' to the Sakamoto Ryoma story involving the po...

Episode 433 - The Wrong Kind of Hero, Part 1

So, the genesis of this particular episode is a bit of an odd one and I wanted to share it with you all. In part, of course, I do simply love Sakamoto Ryoma; as I mentioned on this episode, I do as...

Episode 432 - The Tale of Nakako, Part 2

To start us off, and in keeping with last week, here are a few of the fascinating things I had to cut from Dr. Rowley's account for time. First, there's some tremendous discussion of her interviews...

Episode 431 - The Tale of Nakako, Part 1

This is one of those episodes that happened entirely by serendipity. I wasn't aware of Dr. Rowley's book--it came out when I was in grad school and didn't really focus on anything being published o...

Episode 430 - If the Wind Blows, Let it Blow

For some reason, once again Patreon's link functionality is proving a bit hit-or-miss. The episode and show notes are 2022-03-19 00:10:05 +0000 UTC View Post

Episode 429 - The Glorious Fool

First, a confession; I did write this episode primarily as an excuse to re-read one of my very favorite scholars, the always tremendous Dr. Donald Keene. His biography of Yoshimasa is just a brilli...

Episode 428 - The Highest Bidder

[Edit: looks like during the writing process some of my notes got overwritten by an accidental copy-paste as I was moving things around. Thanks to folks who let me know and sorry for the delay in f...

Episode 427 - The Ones Who Walked Away

So, this is a bit of a new idea for me and I'm curious to see what people think of it. For every longer miniseries there's always 'cutting room floor' material that I end up having to leave out for...

Episode 426 - The City on the Edge of Forever, Part 5

This episode was a challenging one to research because of how much there was to cover; three decades of persecutions and the attendant history is simply a great deal of information to unpack, parti...

Episode 424 - The City on the Edge of Forever, Part 3

One of the subjects I always struggle with in episodes like this is how direct to be about the realities of persecution. On the one hand, I am very uncomfortable trying to play down the violence of...