History of Japan

This week: some reflections on the hollow nature of Manchurian "independence", and on what kept the state going if so few of its own residents believed in its promises. Show notes here.

This week on the podcast: the Japanese presence in Manchuria was never particularly large, even at its height. So how did Japanese rule in Manchuria last as long as it did? And what of the resistance? Show notes here.

In the last episode of 2025: a bomb "mysteriously" goes off just outside Mukden during the evening of September 18, 1931. Less than six months later, Manchuria becomes an "independent country." Japan's government loses complete control over the army, all over the issue of its new "Manchurian Lifeline." And suddenly, for some reason, the last emperor of China is back! Show notes here.

As Japan enters the 1920s, national policy becomes increasingly liberalized--but Manchuria remains a holdout of extremists who, if anything, begin to take a more aggressive position on the "China Problem." How did that happen--and how did that aggressive position, seemingly overnight, become normalized back in Japan proper? Show notes here.

This week: Japan's military and civilian leaders find themselves at a crossroads in Manchuria in the 1910s, as views begin to split around what the point of Japan's presence there even is. As Russia and China collapse into civil war, the new liberal post-WWI order will see the beginnings of a very different vision of what Japan's purpose on the Asian mainland even is. Show notes here.

This week: after the Russo-Japanese War, Japan inherited a rather unusual arrangement in Manchuria, which would become the basis of its empire in the region. But how, exactly, would that new empire function? And why, precisely, did it come attached to a corporation, of all things? Show notes here.

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? Show notes here.

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. Show notes here.

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? Show notes here.

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? Show notes here.

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. Show notes here.

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. Show notes here.

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? Show notes here.

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? Show notes here.

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? Show notes here.

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. Show notes here.

This week, we'll look at the first chunk of Kawai Koume's diary, which deals with life in the 1830s--or as she knew it, the Tenpo Era. What can we learn about the lives of samurai and commoners in Wakayama during the final decades before the great crises that would end feudalism in Japan? Show notes here.

This week, we're starting a new miniseries focused on the life of Kawai Koume, a samurai woman living in Wakayama in the early 1800s. Today is going to be all about framing her life--what do we know about her upbringing, and about the city she grew up in during the twilight years of Japanese feudalism? Show notes here.

This week, we wrap up our series on Hiroshige with a few lingering questions about his career. How much does his "artistic borrowing" really matter? What's his relationship to Hiroshiges II and III? What about his second marriage and daughter? And ultimately, what makes him so damn famous--and what can we learn from that? Show notes here.

This week, we're covering Hiroshige's emergence as an artist, which took 20 years after he finished his apprenticeship in the Utagawa school. Why the long gap? And what changed to finally allow him to break out artistically? Show notes here.