History of Japan

Latest Episodes:

Episode 605 - The Final Frontier, Part 1 Nov 28, 2025

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This week, we're turning our attention to possibly the most unique of Japan's colonial ventures during the imperial era: Manchuria. Most know about Manchuria because of its role in the turbulent politics of the 1930s, but Japanese involvement in the region goes back quite a bit further. But first, what even is Manchuria in the first place?

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Episode 604 - The Bureaucrats, Part 3 Nov 22, 2025

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For a long time, the bureaucracy--in all its elitist, meritocratic glory--has taken a great deal of the credit for Japan's postwar economic miracle. But how much of that credit does it actually deserve? Plus, some ruminations on the post-1990s fate of the bureaucracy and its general history.

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Episode 603 - The Bureaucrats, Part 2 Nov 14, 2025

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This week: the Meiji Bureaucracy, in all its glory. How did the system actually work? What sorts of people did it attract? And what happened when the United States tried to reform the system after 1945?

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Episode 602 - The Bureaucrats, Part 1 Nov 07, 2025

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In America, when we think of bureaucracy, it doesn't conjure the best associations. In Japan, meanwhile, the bureaucracy has a long history as one of the central organs of the state. So, how did that happen, and why has the bureaucracy--rather uniquely among Japanese institutions--survived as long as it has?

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Episode 601 - On Grad School (w/Charlotte Lai!) Oct 31, 2025

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One of the questions I get asked a lot is about grad school: what's it like, who's it for, what applications are like, and so on. But I've been out of academia for almost 10 years, so it's hard to say what things are like today. Fortunately, a listener and friend was willing to hop on and share her far more recent experiences!

Thanks again to Charlotte for sharing her story.

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Episode 600 - The Six-Hundredth Episode Oct 24, 2025

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Here we are again, my friends! It's been two years since our last Q and A, and now it's time for a new one. Thank you all for your questions, and here's to another 100.

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Episode 599 - Ain't It Grand? Oct 17, 2025

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This week, we're talking about one of the oddest moments of the final years of feudalism: a spontaneous outbreak of dancing and religious worship collectively referred to as the "Ee Ja Nai Ka" movement. What was it, what motivated it, and how much can we even answer those questions to begin with?

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Episode 598 - Koume's World, Part 5 Oct 10, 2025

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This week, we're finishing our time with Kawai Koume by looking at how life in Wakayama had changed by the mid-1870s. Feudalism is no more, Confucianism is a historical relic, and the samurai class are in the midst of being consigned to the dustbin of history; so what is Koume thinking and doing as she's watching the world she grew up with vanish in the final years of her life?

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Episode 597 - Koume's World, Part 4 Oct 03, 2025

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This week, the Kawai family has finally made good in the world of feudal Wakayama--just in time for that world to come down around their ears. How did the family finally make it to the top, and what was it like for them to watch the shogunate and the samurai class itself implode?

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Episode 596 - Koume's World, Part 3 Sep 26, 2025

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After a long hiatus, the diary of Kawai Koume picks back up in 1853, a year of absolutely no world-shaking importance in Japanese history whatsoever-wait, I'm hearing from our producers that, in point of fact, some pretty crazy things are about to go down. And Kawai Koume, like many others, is frantically going to be trying to follow the latest news about it all while living her own life as best she can--and dealing with more than her share of tragedies.

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