History of Japan

This week, we return to the turbulent age of the Bakumatsu--the collapse of the Tokugawa state--with a biography of one of the era's most intriguing figures, Sakamoto Ryoma. Who was Ryoma, where did h...

8 Apr 202235min

This week: just what sort of scandal sent Nakanoin Nakako to the far end of Japan, and how did fate intervene to set her on a new course once again? And what can we learn from trying to trace a life l...

1 Apr 202237min

This week on the podcast, we're exploring the life of a woman whose story would normally be confined to the sidelines: an imperial concubine in the early 1600s by the name of Nakanoin Nakako? Who was ...

25 Mar 202235min

This week on the podcast, we're talking the tale of the iconoclastic monk Ikkyu Sojun. His fame is predicated on an odd combination of Zen austerity and the embrace of the wine shop and the brothel, r...

18 Mar 202234min

How can a man who was terrible as a ruler also be one of the most important tastemakers in Japanese history? Today we're unpacking the biography of Ashikaga Yoshimasa, more or less universally reviled...

11 Mar 202236min

Today, we're looking at a rather unusual scandal from early 20th century Japan, and what it shows us about the power of the democratic impulse in Japan even before the country could be called a democr...

4 Mar 202236min

This week, we're taking some material from the cutting room floor of last series to talk about the stories of two Japanese Christians, both of whom became ordained priests--and both of whom apostatize...

25 Feb 202236min

Our final episode of this miniseries will detail the early decades of the Christian persecutions in Nagasaki. Once the religion was banned, how did the Tokugawa authorities go about rooting it out--an...

18 Feb 202236min