History of Japan

This week: what are three educated women to do in a society that doesn't value their education?

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

This week: what, in the end, did the Occupation mean -- for both the occupied and the occupier? 

This week: what was it like to live through the Occupation? How did people get by? And why is Kurosawa Akira objectively the greatest director ever? 

This week: the social reforms of the Occupation. Economic policy, education policy: it's like our very own C-SPAN screening! 

This week, we talk about what it took to make a peace on paper a peace in fact. With millions of Japanese civilians and soldiers scattered across Asia, what would it take to get them all home again?

This week, we discuss the course of the Tokyo War Crimes Trials and their legacy in Japan. How did they go from a vision of international optimism to despised by people on both sides of the political spectrum?

This week, we'll begin a discussion of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, better known as the Tokyo War Crimes Trials. Who is being tried, what for, and why? 

This week: where did Japan's constitution come from, and how the hell did it get done in only six days?

The Occupation begins! This week, we'll set the stage with a focus on the relationship between Supreme Commander Douglass MacArthur and Emperor Hirohito. 

This week, we turn our attention to the US Occupation of Japan. When did Americans first start thinking seriously about taking Japan over and remaking its whole society?

This week, we're doing a biography of the little known Buddhist socialist Seno'o Giro. How do you reconcile Buddhism and Marx? Find out this week!

This week, we round out our look at the hard left in Japan. Militant communist uprisings (if less than 100 people counts as an uprising), electoral maneuvering, recycling policy -- this episode has it all. 

This week: the Japanese left is relegated to permanent opposition status in the postwar period. How did the revolutionary moment come to this?

This week, the floodgates are open! The system has fallen, and the left is poised to seize power...or not!

Today, a specter is haunting Japan. But that specter is not communism; it's the ghost of the communist party, dead before it truly lived. This week on the podcast: how to kill a communist party in a few easy steps. 

The revolution comes to Japan...but not really. Today we explore the birth and very rapid death of Japan's first socialist party, and the rise of its communist movement.

Today, we'll turn our attention to a set of ideas that will ultimately fall flat on their face in Japan (and most other places): Marxism. How did the hard left come to Japan? And before that, what even is Marxism? 

This week, it's time for Japan's first party politician: Hara Takashi. Was he a populist hero or a wannabe elite? And in the end, does that even really matter?

This week, we explore the history of one of Japan's most popular art forms: kabuki theater. Major themes include prostitution, Tokugawa era morality laws, stagecraft, prostitution, and the superiority of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine over The Next Generation. 

Today, we'll wrap up our look at the Russo-Japanese War with some thoughts on its long term consequences. How much of an impact can a war that lasted for a year and a half really have?

Apologies for the technical delay! Today, we'll watch Russia descend into chaos, and take a look at the peace negotiations that result as both sides realize they can't keep this war up. 

It's time for the Imperial Japanese Navy to bail out the Imperial Japanese Army. But first, let's enjoy the Russian Baltic Fleet's Party Cruise to the Pacific!

In the last major land battle of the Russo-Japanese War, two great powers enter and...two great powers leave? Wait, I'm confused. How are the Japanese winning every battle and still not winning the war?

The Russians retreat, the Japanese advance, the losses pile up. Things are starting to get a bit worrisome for the Japanese army; could they potentially win every battle and still lose the war?