History of Japan Isaac Meyer
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- History
This podcast, assembled by a former PhD student in History at the University of Washington, covers the entire span of Japanese history. Each week we'll tackle a new topic, ranging from prehistoric Japan to the modern day.
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Episode 533 - At the Table or On the Table
This week on the Revised Introduction to Japanese History: Japan joins the ranks of the great powers by building its own colonial empire. How did Japan come to be a great colonial power, what made its empire different from the others of the age, and more importantly: what made it the same?
Show notes here. -
Episode 532 - Cash Rules Everything Around Me
This week on the Revised Introduction to Japanese History: the economics of Meiji Japan, and a brief foray into social attitudes towards Westernization. How did Japan transform itself from being largely cut off from the world economy to central to it within half a century, and what impact did all this change have on the national self-image and culture?
Show notes here.
Also: there will be no episode next week, as I will be on a school trip touring Japan with students. -
Episode 531 - The New Japan
This week on the Revised Introduction to Japanese History: the politics of the Meiji Period! After a coalition of samurai, nobles, loyalists, and others succeed in overthrowing the Tokugawa shogunate, they must ask themselves: what comes next? And, in the time honored tradition of revolution, they answer that question by killing off or removing from office anyone they disagree with.
Show notes here. -
Episode 530 - Bakumatsu, Part 3
This week: the age of feudalism comes crashing down, as in the span of just two years the Tokugawa shogunate goes from victory to crushing defeat. How did the final years of Tokugawa rule play out?
Show notes here. -
Episode 529 - Bakumatsu, Part 2
This week on the Revised Introduction to Japanese History: the sudden assassination of the tairo Ii Naosuke sparks the rapid ascension of imperial loyalism, an ideology devoted to the undoing of the unequal treaties and the overthrow of the shogunate. How did loyalism come to be a dominant force in the politics of the early 1860s, and how did its following collapse in just a few years?
Show notes here.
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Episode 528 - Bakumatsu, Part 1
This week on the Revised Introduction to Japanese History: the beginning of the end of the Tokugawa shogunate. Commodore Perry's expedition to Edo will begin a process of radical political change as a teetering Tokugawa shogunate is forced to confront a challenge of Western imperialism that it will not prove equal to resisting.
Show notes here.