Danny Orbach, "Curse on This Country: The Rebellious Army of Imperial Japan" (Cornell UP, 2017)

Danny Orbach, "Curse on This Country: The Rebellious Army of Imperial Japan" (Cornell UP, 2017)

Danny Orbach’s Curse on This Country: The Rebellious Army of Imperial Japan (Cornell University Press, 2017) provides new insights into the origins of the insubordination that plagued and characterized the Imperial Japanese Army in the 1930s. Orbach identifies the causes of insubordination in both the political culture of the military dating back to the Meiji Restoration itself and a series of systemic “bugs” that infected the modern political system but that were in themselves the result of mostly reasonable solutions to challenges Japan faced early on in its blitzkrieg modernization. By assembling a series of mostly well known events into a coherent narrative from the 1860s to the 1930s, Orbach shows how insubordination in the name of the emperor rotted the Army from its core and destroyed civilian control in the process, culminating in the military governments of the Second World War period. The book is not only a convincing reevaluation of the history of the Army and modern Japan, but also a refreshing antidote to persistent misconceptions about the roots and timeline of Japan’s imperial ambitions. Instead of a geopolitical imperial strategy with roots in the 1870s, in which there is a continuity of aggressive expansionist purpose, what we come away with is a story about the continuity of structural/systemic “bugs” and their long-term unintended consequences. This podcast was recorded in front of a live audience at Nagoya University. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/military-history

Episoder(1631)

Jack Cheevers, "Kennedy’s Coup: A White House Plot, a Saigon Murder, and America's Descent into Vietnam" (Simon and Schuster, 2026)

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Based on a decade of research and writing, enriched by eyewitness interviews and revealing documents obtained through dozens of freedom of information requests, Kennedy’s Coup vividly recreates the Ke...

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Susanna Elm and Kristina Sessa, "War and Community in Late Antiquity" (Cambridge UP, 2026)

Susanna Elm and Kristina Sessa, "War and Community in Late Antiquity" (Cambridge UP, 2026)

Susanna Elm and Kristina Sessa, War and Community in Late Antiquity (Cambridge UP, 2026) Late Antiquity (ca. 250–600 CE) was a world at war: barbarian migrations, civil wars, raids, and increasingly ...

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Stephen Sims’ New Atlantis essay examines how emerging technologies are reshaping the structure and authority of the modern nation-state. He argues that innovations such as artificial intelligence, dr...

27 Apr 40min

Douglas Waller, "The Determined Spy: The Turbulent Life and Times of CIA Pioneer Frank Wisner" (Penguin, 2026)

Douglas Waller, "The Determined Spy: The Turbulent Life and Times of CIA Pioneer Frank Wisner" (Penguin, 2026)

Frank Wisner was one of the most powerful men in 1950s Washington, though few knew it. Reporting directly to senior U.S. officials--his work largely hidden from Congress and the public-- Wisner master...

26 Apr 1h 2min

Zaakir Tameez, "Charles Sumner: Conscience of a Nation" (Henry Holt, 2025)

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A landmark biography of Charles Sumner, the unsung hero of the American Civil War and ReconstructionCharles Sumner is mainly known as the abolitionist statesman who suffered a brutal caning on the Sen...

25 Apr 1h 7min

Mia Martin Hobbs and Joan Beaumont, "Challenging Anzac: Stories That Don't Fit the Legend" (NewSouth, 2026)

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Challenging Anzac: Stories that don’t fit the legend Edited by Mia Martin Hobbs, Carolyn Holbrook, The Anzac legend has shaped Australia’s national identity for more than a century. Yet many experien...

25 Apr 1h 1min

Jan Cress Dondi, "The Navigator's Letter" (Union Square, 2026)

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One of the riskiest air raids of World War II occurred on August 1, 1943, over the oil fields at Ploesti, Romania--Nazi Germany's primary fuel source. The Allies believed that the destruction of Hitle...

22 Apr 38min

Drew Flanagan, "From Occupation to Integration: Recivilizing the French Zone of Post-Nazi Germany, 1945-1955" (LSU Press, 2026)

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After the collapse of the National Socialist regime in May 1945, France became one of four principal occupying powers in a defeated Germany. Within their zone of occupation along the Upper and Middle ...

22 Apr 55min

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