History of Japan

View Top 200 Chart

Back to Rankings Page

Education
**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.

Latest Episodes:

Episode 489 - The Nation's Kitchen, Part 3 Jun 16, 2023

Show notes

This week: it's the height of the Edo period, and you sail into Osaka's harbor. What sorts of things might you see?

Show notes here.

Episode 487 - The Nation's Kitchen, Part 2 Jun 09, 2023

Show notes

This week: how the rise of a powerful religious institution helped draw the attention of one of Japan's greatest warlords to Osaka, and how the city emerged from the ashes of his collapse to become once again a center of commerce in Japan.

Note: due to a numbering error on my end, I recorded this episode as 487. It is actually 488. This has been corrected for episode posts, but I don't have the time to go re-record the opening of each episode.

Show notes here.

Episode 486 - The Nation's Kitchen, Part 1 Jun 02, 2023

Show notes

This week: the start of our multi-part series on the history of Osaka! Supposedly the site where Japan's first emperor began his conquests, the city has a long history stretching back well before it even got its current name. This week is all about the first 1000-ish years of Osaka's history, and how it became one of the country's most important port cities.

Show notes here.

Episode 485 - Outfoxed! May 26, 2023

Show notes

This week: how did Japan's most popular god develop a following around the country, and why is that god--Inari--associated with everything from farming to fire prevention? How come you see Inari worship in Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines alike? And what does all of this have to do with foxes, anyway?

Show notes here.

Episode 484 - Passion and Prejudice, Part 2 May 19, 2023

Show notes

This week: the Pal dissent becomes the Pal myth. How did an obscure document from the Tokyo Trials end up front and center in nationalist discourse in Japan today?

Show notes here.

Episode 483 - Passion and Prejudice, Part 1 May 12, 2023

Show notes

This week, we're starting a look into how an Indian lawyer and judge from a relatively obscure background became a focal point of right-wing Japanese nationalism. Who was Radhabinod Pal, how did he end up a judge in the Tokyo Trials, and what led him to claim that there were no grounds to convict Japan's leaders of any crime after World War II?

Note: this episode does contain indirect discussion of war crimes. Listener discretion is advised.

Show notes here.

Episode 483 - Japan, the Beautiful, the Ambiguous, Part 2 May 05, 2023

Show notes

Oe Kenzaburo is about as different a writer as you can think of from Kawabata Yasunari, and yet he's Japan's second ever Nobel laureate in literature. What sort of concerns defined his work, and what can we learn from looking at him in conjunction with Kawabata?

Show notes here.

Episode 482 - Japan, the Beautiful, the Ambiguous, Part 1 May 01, 2023

Show notes

Apologies for the delay, folks. Something went wrong in the Libsyn backend. Here's our episode on Kawabata Yasunari!

Episode 481 - The Dynasty, Part 4 Apr 14, 2023

Show notes

We're wrapping up our look at the Hatoyama political dynasty with some time on Hatoyama Iichiro (arguably Japan's most reluctant politican) and his two sons Kunio and Yukio. Plus some thoughts on the legacy of the Hatoyama family and on dynastic electoral politics more generally.

Show notes here.

Episode 480 - The Dynasty, Part 3 Apr 07, 2023

Show notes

This week: Hatoyama Ichiro's revenge tour culminates in finally reaching the top spot as PM and in the formation of the LDP. What does the torturous road it took to get there tell us about the man, and about the politics of his time?

Show notes here.

Our TOPPODCAST Picks

Follow Us

Stay Connected

Related Podcasts

Links

Stay Connected