History of Japan

Finally, a long overdue look at one of the most romanticized and exocitized parts of traditional Japanese culture. What ... Read more

This week, we'll be starting a short series about the advent of the samurai class. First, what came before the samurai, ... Read more

How does a nation ruled by warriors descend into over 100 years of civil war? Find out this week as we discuss the cause... Read more

For our first listener-submitted topic, we're tackling Bushido: the warrior code of the samurai class. We'll discuss the... Read more

This week, we start a look at the history of the city of Tokyo. How did the frontier fishing village of Edo go from back... Read more

This week, we turn our attention to the US Occupation of Japan. When did Americans first start thinking seriously about ... Read more

What do you get when you cross radical Confucianism with armed samurai? Japan's first samurai rebellion since the 1630s,... Read more

This week: where do Japan's traditional martial arts come from? 

The Occupation begins! This week, we'll set the stage with a focus on the relationship between Supreme Commander Douglas... Read more

This week, we're starting our new longest ever series on the collapse of the Tokugawa shogunate and the birth of modern ... Read more

In our first of six episodes on the atomic bombs, we start to answer an important question; where did the idea for the b... Read more

This week: what does it take to be part of Japan's most infamous warlord duo? We explore the lives of Takeda Shingen and... Read more

This week, we've got our first ever interview with author and Shikoku pilgrimage survivor Paul Barach. You can find his ... Read more

This week, we turn to Japan's "native outsiders" -- the Ainu, the aboriginal people of Hokkaido. We'll trace their relat... Read more

This week we start a multipart series on the Muromachi period and the reign of the Ashikaga family. How did they come to... Read more

This week, we're going to discuss one of the most reprehensible aspects of a war littered with horrible acts; the system... Read more

This week, we'll begin a discussion of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, better known as the Tokyo W... Read more

This week: the beginning of a two parter on Japan's first ever female exchange students. 

This week, we're taking a look at a specific oni tale, and probably the most famous one; the story of the Demon King of ... Read more

Since Japan just got itself a new emperor, this is a good time to go back and look at an incident from the enthronement ... Read more