History of Japan

Latest Episodes:

Episode 412 - ...Don't Do the Crime Oct 29, 2021

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This week, we're looking at how the criminal justice system in Japan was remade to serve the interests of the imperial state--a process which laid the groundwork for much of how the justice system operates today.

Show notes here.

Episode 411 - If You Can't Do the Time... Oct 22, 2021

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This week, we're taking a quick detour into Isaac trolling fans of Michel Foucault-er, the Edo period criminal justice system. How did this system operate, and what considerations are responsible for its approach to justice?

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Episode 410 - A Man of His Times Oct 15, 2021

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This week: Isaac spends 30 minutes unpacking the 400+ page ramblings of a cranky retiree who died about 200 years ago, but whose polemics against his own society have a remarkable amount to teach us about one of the most important moments in Japanese history.

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Episode 409 - The Contenders, Part 4 Oct 08, 2021

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How did it all go so very wrong?

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Episode 408 - The Contenders, Part 3 Oct 01, 2021

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In just three years, Ozawa Ichiro managed to guide the DPJ from defeat to one of the most smashing victories in Japan's political history. How did he do it? And why, despite the fact that he was the one who set the stage for this victory, did he never end up serving as the prime minister in the aftermath? Show notes here.

Episode 407 - The Contenders, Part 2 Sep 24, 2021

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This week, the DPJ's good fortune--in the form of the hilariously politically inept Prime Minister Mori Yoshihiro--turns to disaster, as he is replaced by the charismatic Koizumi Junichiro. Facing a revived LDP, the DPJ will turn to one of the most singular (and divisive) figures in modern Japanese politics: Ozawa Ichiro.

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Episode 406 - The Contenders, Part 1 Sep 17, 2021

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This week, we're beginning a four-part retrospective on the rise and fall of Japan's most successful postwar opposition party: The Democratic Party of Japan, or DPJ. This week: how did two veterans of the tumultuous politics of the early 1990s come together to found this scrappy little party, and what forces led to the DPJ becoming the largest of Japan's opposition parties?

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Episode 405 - The Road Not Taken Sep 10, 2021

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This week, we're talking about one of the last attempts to save the Tokugawa shogunate: the Tenpo Reforms of the 1840s, and their chief architect, the hard-partying Mizuno Tadakuni. What did he see as the most pressing problems Japan faced? How did he try to solve them? And how did this final attempt to salvage Tokugawa rule fail so badly?

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Episode 404 - The Hesperia Incident Sep 03, 2021

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This week, we're taking a closer look at the unequal treaty system of the 1800s by exploring one of its crappier (!) consequences: a diplomatic incident over cholera quarantines and extraterritorial laws surrounding a small German freighter called the Hesperia.

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Episode 403 - Yet Shall He Find a Thousand Troubles Aug 27, 2021

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This week, we're discussing Japan's reckoning with its wartime past through the lens of the nation's self-appointed conscience: the historian Ienaga Saburo, who spent 30 years locked in legal battles with the government over what could and could not be included in history textbooks.

Show notes here.

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