69 thoughts on “Social Media & Contact Information”

  1. Hello Isaac, I’ve been in Japan for about a week now and have been relying on your podcast to educate me during my three week stay. I’ve listened to about the first 27 episodes. I think a great podcast topic would be Japanese beliefs about death and the afterlife, and about the cemeteries. I have found the cemeteries to be fascinating and I plan to visit as many as possible while I am here. I’d like to know more about burial practices and about the big bell you see in every cemetery and the thin slabs of wood with characters on them, incense, vessels for liquid that I see on many stones, etc. I think the handling of death and burial practices is a very important window into any culture, and based on the podcast titles of the episodes that I haven’t heard yet, I dont’ think you have covered this yet.

    Thank you for a very educational podcast, and please keep up the good work,

    Sincerely, Stefan Koch

  2. Hey Isaac, Here’s a second comment. I’ve been in Japan now for almost 4 weeks and have listened to almost all of your podcasts, except for the last 2 or 3. They have provided a valuable commentary on the things I have been seeing and reading in the newspaper. Just today I was on Ueno hill and saw the statue of Saigo and where the last battle happened in the final defeat of the Tokugawa clan. Also saw the Tokugawa family tombs in Yanaka cemetery.

    While I’ve been here I’ve thought of a couple more topics for podcasts: sumo wrestling for one. I went to a match earlier in the month and it was fascinating. It involves history, religion, sport, etc. I think it would be a great podcast. For that matter, you might want to cover baseball as well. There is a definitely historical angle there.

    Since you did such a great job of the timeline in the early episodes, you might also think if there’s a way to cover regional history and the differences of the histories of the different islands, or of east and west Honshu.

    Anyway, I’m here till Feb. 1st and if there’s anything I can do for you while I am here, it would be small payback for the great pleasure that you have given me through your work.

    Sincerely, Stefan Koch

    1. I actually have some ideas about doing regional histories for Choshu and Aizu, but I might be folding them into a larger history of the Meiji Restoration. Sumo would be fun, but I know almost nothing about it — I’ll have to find the time to read up. I’m grateful for the offer, and I’m glad you’re enjoying the show.

  3. Hey Isaac, One last comment: I have now learned enough Japanese history from you and from the last month spent in Japan that I have a humble correction to offer. In Episode 6 you say that the last of the Hojo committed suicide in Toshoji Temple in modern Kanagawa. I’m sure it was just a slip of the tongue, because I know you know that Toshoji Temple is in Kamakura. I only know this because I was in Kamakura and walked right past the former site of this temple. The plaque on site reminded me that you had covered this incident and I went back and listened to Episode 6 again.

    Even though I am leaving Japan tomorrow, I’m going to keep listening to your podcast and keep learning more about this amazing country. Thank you again for enriching my time here with your knowledge and passion for Japan.

    Sincerely, Stefan Koch

      1. Ijmeyer,
        I have lived in Japan for 9 of the last 10 years, (2006-2011 Zama, Kanagawa; 2014-2016 Gotemba, Shizuoka; and 2016-2018 Yamato, Kanagawa) and I want to tell you that you were correct. Yes the temples were built in Kamakura but that city is a part of Kanagawa prefecture. I started listening to your podcasts 3 weeks ago and am on # 96 right now. I enjoy them while I jog daily.

  4. Dear Isaac,

    I would be interested to hear content regarding the Japanese penal system: I’ve heard that it’s more harsh than the American system, but the results are more effective. I’ve got no data to verify these claims though. Very much enjoying the show and I look forward to more!

    Regards,
    J

  5. Dear Isaac,

    First off, I love the show! I first discovered your podcast a couple of years back and ever since I moved to Japan a few months ago, I’ve been rediscovering it. You do a really good job of laying out a preliminary framework for understanding the scale of events from the “beginning” of Japanese history to the present, which as a novice of learning history I greatly appreciated.

    Second, I am a big fan of anime and manga, and have swallowed a large volume of both. I bring this up because I have more than a few times been reminded of scenes, stories, characters and ideas from anime and manga after hearing you mention something on the podcast. Probably the most prominent examples I can think of right now are Gintama and Rurouni Kenshin, both of which borrow, in varying degrees, from the periods of history prior to and during the Meiji Restoration.

    I am not sure if you had any intention of doing episodes on these or any other anime or manga and their portrayals of historical events or figures, but I would be interested to hear your take on something like this. I would do it myself, but I’m afraid I know far more about these pieces of media than the history I would have to reference and I don’t think I would be able to do it justice.

    If you ever do want to do a discussion on anime or manga or any other popular media in the future, feel free to contact me and I would be more than happy to chat, offer my opinion or help out in any way. Thanks for everything you do and I can’t wait to hear more podcasts in the future!

    P.S. I’m a bit handy with code and I’m working on a project that you might find handy for organizing interconnected historical events 😉

    -Vish

  6. Dear Isaac,

    I wanted to thank you for this wonderful podcast. While my passion is the Sengoku Jidai (it seems yours is the Meiji period but I could be wrong) I have nonetheless enjoyed every episode (yes, I have listened to them all) and your keen insight relating to a number of topics.

    Needless to say, I would love to hear your take on the Sengoku more closely (especially in relation to some of the big names that get forgotten in the shadow of Nobunaga, Hideyoshi and Tokugawa – for example, Hojo Soun or Maeda Toshiie) but largely just wanted to stop by to thank you for all the time and effort you have put into this podcast.

    -Matt

  7. Good job! I really like the style of your podcast and the way you covered all the basic course of japanese history in the first part and then moved to thematic episodes right after. Greetings from Italy 🙂

    1. Grazie! I hope those old episodes still hold up. I knew so little about audio editing back then…
      I hope you continue to enjoy the series!

  8. Hi Isaac, I started to listen to your podcast recently in preparation for a trip to Kyoto and really enjoyed your work. I didn’t find it in your list of episodes but have you thought about discussing the relationship of Japan and Taiwan? I grew up in Taiwan but moved to the US during high school. My grandparents’ generation grew up during the Japanese occupation in Taiwan. The Japanese influence is found in the culture, cuisine, aesthetics, language and many more ways. There were also several uprising/rebellions that are worth mentioning. Keep up the good work and I look forward to hearing many more episodes from you!

    1. I’d definitely like to do something on Japan and Taiwan. I got into it a bit in the Japan-China series, but I do think the Taiwan relationship is unique enough to probably merit something at some point — I just need to think a bit more about what exactly that will be.
      Enjoy Kyoto, and thank you for the kind words.

  9. Dear Isaac,
    Love hearing your podcast. Can hear you put a lot of effort into it. Thanks for your service. I have suggestion for a topic. How about doing a session about Japan ‘s relation to Sakhalin and the Northern Territories?

  10. Hi Isaac, I hope you are well!

    I recently finished listening to your podcast from the beginning.

    I really enjoyed the series about Japan’s relationship with Russia and the series on Japan and the USA. I wonder if you are working on a similar series regarding Japan’s relationship with Germany.

    I’m watching Oliver Stone’s history program on Netflix and he says that had Japan and Germany better coordinated during WWII they could have finished off the USSR. Do you agree with this?

    Thanks for reading! I’ll be listening to your show for years to come.

  11. Hey, Isaac. First off, thanks so much for cranking out these informative podcasts week after week. Keep up the good work! 🙂

    Secondly, I was wondering if you’ve ever considered doing an episode(s) on the Ainu of Hokkaido? I’ve been reading up on them ever since I came across this manga called “Golden Kamuy,” and I’d love to hear your take on the subject, which IIRC is still a delicate subject in Japan even today.

    1. I actually have an Ainu episode! It’s not as detailed as I’d like so I may revisit it at some point, but there is something. Episode 97, I think.

  12. Recently found this podcast and have plowed through about 70 episodes in a couple weeks. I lived in japan for a couple years and listening to this podcast makes me wish I had know about this stuff before I went.
    I have a couple suggestions on themes that I’d be interested to hear about. How about doing a small multi-part series on the Yakuza in Japan? I know I haven’t listened to all of the episodes so you might have an episode dedicated to this that I didn’t notice by briefly looking at the titles of all of them. Also when I was in Japan a hot topic seemed to be the rapid decline of population and its effects on the society. Maybe an episode on that would be interesting. Also an episode on the linguistic history of Japanese might be interesting. Anyway just some topics to consider. Thanks for your podcast, keep up the good work!

    1. I actually did a two parter on the Yakuza! I’ve been batting around an episode on the birth rate issue in my head, I’ve just never settled on an approach I like. Doing it as a sort of comparative episode (most 1st world countries have this problem to some extent, but why is it such an issue in Japan) could be interesting, but also less directly Japan-oriented. Focusing specifically on Japan’s case gives more detail, but possibly too much. It’s a hard call!

  13. Hi Issac, I’m a HUGE fan of the podcast. Now trying to convince my wife to visit Japan. Do you know anything about Keirin cycling? Worth an episode? Cheers. Ross.

    1. I know a bit about it, and I’ve thought on and off about doing something on the history of gambling in Japan (my understanding is that keirin originated specifically as a vehicle to facilitate sports gambling).
      Good luck! I’m sure you can find something to sell her with.

  14. Hello Isaac,

    Thank you for producing such an insightful and enjoyable podcast to listen to, listening to your podcast has quickly become a staple in my daily routine. I’d like to suggest a thematic episode on LGBT+ people in Japanese History if that’s possible?

  15. Very informative podcast, interesting delivery, but I have one gripe: The audio quality is damn near unlistenable. It sounds like you’re inside a giant tin can speaking in to your laptop’s in-built microphone. Maybe I’m just too picky because I work in pro audio, but I’d be glad to help you out improving the quality of your recordings or doing some editing for you. Get in touch via my email if you’d like.

  16. Hello Isaac!

    I’m a huge fan of the show, listening to your podcast has become a fixture in my daily routine. Thank you for the insightful and enjoyable work!
    I was wondering if you could make an episode on LGBT+ people in Japan?

  17. Thanks so much for making this podcast, Isaac! As someone who has been 一年間ぐらい勉強している, your episodes have been excellent for contextualizing things I’ve been learning and to take a break from grammar and vocab exercises. As it happens, an upcoming outdoors trip will be keeping me away from your podcast for a few weeks, and I was wondering if you might have any recommendation on a solidly comprehensive and engaging book on Japanese cultural history–a sort of basic primer for understanding today’s Japan vis-a-vis its past? Thanks for taking the time to read and answer my question, Isaac!

    1. Tragically, the only comprehensive one I know off the top of my head is George Sansom’s, which is now extremely out of date. There are more modern cultural histories, but they tend to be confined to a specific topic rather than general reference works. Sorry!

    2. Hi Andrew, I came across your comment, and I’m not sure if this is what you might be looking for, but I would recommend these two books. They’re a comprehensive look at Japanese history from Japanese sources translated into English. If anything, I’ve found them to be really good starting points for learning more.

      Volume One: Sources of Japanese Tradition: From Earliest Times to 1600 Compiled by WM. Theodore de Bary, Donald Keene, George Tanabe, and Paul Varley

      Volume Two: Sources of Japanese Tradition: 1600 to 2000 Compiled by WM Theodore de Bary, Carol Gluck, and Arthur E. Tiedemann

  18. Hi Isaac,

    I really liked episode Episode 248 – Family Matters particularly the part about Kusumoto Ine and hearing about her career. You see, my other main interest besides Japan is medicine. I was thinking it would be fascinating if you could do an episode or two on the history of medicine in Japan. From how Chinese medicine was brought over to Japan from China, up to how western medicine came to Japan and how these factors influence medicine in Japan today.

    Anyway, it’s just a suggestion, but it would be awesome if you could do that!

    Thanks,

    Michael

  19. Hi Isaac,
    first I want to really thank you for all the effort you put into this podcast! I study Japanology myself (for some 3 years now) and I got a lot of fertile insights from all the history you were telling me 😀 I guess, I would believe myself to be a long-time listener of your podcast, just (until now!) missing the most recent ones. Unfortunately, as time goes by, I just remember you said something, but I don’t know exactly, which source I can cite (need it for a paper actually): within the long story of “The Fall of the Samurai” you stated, that the Japanese people didn’t think of themselves as “Japanese” until after the Meiji Restauration, but rather, if asked, they would say “I am from Satsuma” or “I am from Hizen” or whatever. Do you know which source you got that argument from? This would be great!
    Thanks a lot!
    Ruiji

  20. Hello again Isaac! I hope that you are well. I was wondering if it would be possible to make an episode on professional wrestling in Japan?

  21. Hello Isaac. Greetings from Ireland. Thanks for a wonderful compendium of podcasts. I have listened to every episode from the beginning. I had the pleasure this May of being able to listen to episodes concerning the Satsuma Domain, while touring Kyushu. Likewise I listened to your episode on Takeda Shingen when visiting Yamanashi.

    If you have not already completed a podcast on the author Lafcadio Hearn ( Koizumi Yakumo), it would make for a poignant episode for me. If not, consider an episode on the sacred mountains of Japan, ( Koya, or Heizan) and how nature and society is comingled within Japanese culture.

  22. Hi Issac, I live in Japan and have really enjoyed your podcasts on the way to the office. I’d love an episode on the history of the addressing system in Japan. Blew my mind when I first moved here. Thanks

  23. Hi Isaac!
    Love the series. It’s terrifically entertaining and informative, and it has been an invaluable travel resource.

    Two ideas for future episodes for you:
    1) a review of Know Your Enemy: Japan to evaluate how Japan was demonized by the US during the war. You could also/alternatively use such an episode to characterize your own perspective (and potential biases) in your approach to describing Japan and some of the more controversial historical events you have covered (such as the war with China).

    2) expanding from the brief article you published here a while back about the sites you were visiting in Japan at the time, an episode, or series of episodes, recommending historic sites to visit in Japan, and important things to know about events that had transpired there, would be awesome.

    Thank you for your phenomenal work!

  24. Hi Issac,

    My wife got me into your podcast over two years ago before our honeymoon in Japan, I’ve recently been catching up after a break.

    I was wondering if you could do an episode on the history of mining in Japan, you often mention wealth through agriculture which is a confucian way of looking at economics. How does mining and metal production relate to the pre-modern economy? Were there certain domains that were more wealthy in this regard? Was metal production and finishing (smithing) focused on centers like Edo/Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka or more defuse through the country?

    Regards, and thanks for the many hours of podcasts,

  25. Hi Isaac,
    I live in Japan and recently discovered your podcast. I have become addicted! I listen to it while cycling (I use a speaker mounted to my bike, so I don’t endanger myself). Anyhoo, while I have not listened to every episode (yet), I was thinking that I might offer you a few suggestions for possible future episodes. Here they are! 1. The Shinsengumi, 2. Mito Koumon: the myth and the man. 3. Why people think that Ibaraki-ken sucks. I know that last one isn’t necessarily history, but a few years ago it was the number one place in Japan that people didn’t want to visit. I happen to live there and love it, but it gets a bad wrap. Why is that?
    Anyways, Thank you for the show.
    Cheers!

  26. Hi Isaac,

    I have been a big fan of your podcast for years, and I love all the episodes you put out there for all of us to listen, and from which I learn on a weekly basis. Your dedication is remarkable and much appreciated by me and so many others. By any chance, do you recommend any documentaries (on amazon, hulu, netflix, or other platform) about Japanese history? I’d love to hear your thoughts. Thank you for all your hard work through the years, and good luck in the future. I look forward to hopefully many more years of your outstanding podcast. -Andrew Kavros

  27. Something in which you and your audience might be interested: this week’s BBC Radio 3 Documentary is “Jazz Japan”[1], both about the (mostly postwar) history of the music in Japan but also Japanese players and things like jazz kissaten. Like most r3docs, it’s somewhat impressionistic /unfocused (the production values are of course very BBC, i.e. excellent), so I was thinking you could possibly due a more historically- or sociologically-focused interview with the producer[2] on this topic.

    [1]: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0736ldb
    [2]: https://www.kwhatley.net/

  28. Hi Isaac, thanks for filling in my workday with all the good content.

    I’m about to visit Japan and it’s got me wondering about the history of tourism there. When did it start and how did foreigners handle transport and accommodation? Was traveling to a foreign country to wander around taking pictures a strange idea to the Japanese? I’d be really interested to hear a pod on the subject.

    1. Ooh I’d love to do something on the history of tourism in Japan (and maybe also on Japanese tourism abroad). Thank you!

  29. Isaac,
    Love the podcast, I started listening about six months ago and binged all the episodes till that date. Since then l’ve been an avid listener. sitting here drinking Suntory and thinking about the drunken oni episode, have you thought about doing some episodes on the history of booze in Japan. I can’t seem to remember an episode on the subject.
    Thanks for the entertaining and educating content.
    Andy

    1. I haven’t done one yet! I do want to at some point, though. I’m just debating a) whether I want to have a drink on air while doing it and b) how to divide up the topic (or if I should just do it all in one go). Thanks for the kind words!

  30. Howdy Isaac and thank you for the podcast. My wife is from Fukuoka so my baseline for Japanese history and culture tends to come with a Kyushu bin. I’m working my way through all of your episodes so you may have already covered some of these ideas, but have you thought about doing episodes on the below topics:

    Tachibana clan / Yanagawa

    Shimabara – “take your pick “ Christian revolt/ persecution/underground Christians during Edo era , Volcanic eruptions, tsunami 300 years ago.

    History on Ramen….tonkotsu and why the Fukuoka folks like their hard noodles.

    Thank you again for your podcast!

  31. Hello, Isaac! I love this podcast, and tell anyone I meet who likes Japan to listen to it. Congratulations on (almost) 300 episodes!

    For episode 300, I was wondering if you could talk about Japanese music. (If you need something more specific, how about traditional music — for Noh, Kabuki, the kouta that geisha sing (which I am currently dying to get info on), etc.)

    Thanks and keep up the great work!

  32. Isaac,

    Thank you for producing an amazing podcast. While generally I stick to chronological histories, you have an uncanny ability to pick topics that always grab my attention despite the “time-jumps” and I am thoroughly please and satisfied with each episode. I look forward to many years of relishing your work.

    That being said, I hope at some time in the future you will do a episode (or more) dedicated to the Shinsengumi. They seem to be a continuous presence in Japanese media (anime, manga, tv & film) and I would like here the full story of the organization presented with same detail you gave to the yakuza.

    Again, amazing work and will continue to listen for as long as the podcast exists

  33. Hello Isaac,
    Thanks for the podcast. I’ve been wondering – is there some way to access the pages for episodes 67-123? I can’t find them on the site.

    1. Unfortunately, a lot of them got lost in the transition to the new site. I’ve been trying to recover them but no luck so far. Sorry.

      1. Hi, thank you for your work! This show has really gotten me interested in history. Could you please share the domain name of the old website? It might have been captured in the way back machine from the internet archive.

  34. Hello Isaac,

    Really excited for the series on the prisoners of Nanbu. I actually go to the university where Dr. Hesselink teaches, and I took his intro to Japan course this spring. We read Prisoners of Nanbu and I remember thinking while reading it how it would make a great set of episodes for this series. I kept meaning to send you a message suggesting it but I’m glad you were able to find out about it anyway! It really is one of the more interesting stories I can think of from the Edo period so I’m really excited to hear your take on it.

    1. I’m glad you’re excited! I can’t imagine it will be too different from what you got from Dr. Hesselink; his interpretation is highly convincing!

  35. Hello Isaac,

    Thank you so much for taking the time to produce this podcast–it’s one of my favorites, and it’s meant a lot to me personally for adding nuance and context to living in Japan.

    I’ve been thinking a lot about the Prisoners of Nanbu episodes, and in particular, one line where you mentioned that the Portuguese missionaries had had Japanese wives lined up for them that they rejected when they recanted their apostasy. I can’t get these women out of my head–wondering which stratum of society they came from, how they were just procured, and how they felt about marrying some strange European ex-Christians (and what their families thought). I also read that Chinese merchants were encouraged to settle in Nagasaki to trade in the 1600s by officials who “show[ed] them kindness by marrying them to Japanese girls”. Again, I’m wondering where these girls come from, what type of parents would be into their daughter marrying some foreigner from god knows where–or if that meant that they were generally orphans, former prostitutes, or another vulnerable group. This same thing pops up in your podcast now and then, and I always wonder about the behind the scenes machinations that mean these women wind up where they do, and what happened afterwards.

    I know that it probably borders on impossible to get individual names or biographies, but I think that it would be fascinating to know what sort of backgrounds these brides generally came from, and how they faired in such the aftermath of such unorthodox marriages. Would it be possible to look into this and do an episode at some point? My apologies if you’ve already covered it.

    Many thanks!

  36. Hello Isaac!

    I hope that you are well. I am a huge fan of your podcast. I was wondering if you could produce an episode on the history of english being taught in Japan?

  37. Thanks for the great episode on Kozure Okami!!
    I absolutely love the manga – it has been instrumental in rekindling my interest and passion for all things Japanese a few years ago. (I just stumbled on it on the internet.)
    I’m also a huge film fan and have ploughed my way through many jidaigeki at first and – more recently – have watched and learned to appreciate the magnificence of those small, mundane tightly observed relationship and family dramas from the 1940s, 50s, 60s by Ozu, Naruse, et.al.
    The Zatoichi films still are very special to me and I love Shintaro Katsu!!! You have hinted a little bit at his “colourful” personality… I would love an episode entirely focused on him!
    (Oh, and btw, another idea/suggestion: – again pop cultute-related, I’m afraid:
    Have you heard of the Japanese actor Sessue Hayakawa?
    He had an unusual, fascinating life and career:
    apparently he enjoyed very early success as a matinee idol during the silent film era in Hollywood (with a fair bit of racism thrown in, too), then disappeared for a while, only to emerge in later life as a celebrated actor in such films as “Three came home” and, famously, in “Bridge on the river Kwai”.
    I first came across him watching “Three came home” – I was fascinated by how well he spoke English and then started to google…

    Anyway, I love your podcast! Well done and please carry on! Thank you.

  38. Episode suggestion: Satokata Takahashi and the influence of imperial Japan on Black nationalism. Never heard of this sidedoor in history until reading Kevin Baker’s novel, Striver’s Row. in which Takahashi appears as a minor character.

  39. Issaac,
    Consider checking out the podcast “The History of the Twentieth Century” by Mark Painter. He has an epsiode or 3 on the 1918-1919 pandemic.

  40. Hey Isaac

    Great work as always

    Since Japan held the tournament for Rugby World cup in 2019 I thought it would be interesting to hear about the history of Rugby in Japan. Answer the questions why Japan is the only serious contender for Rugby in Asia? And why Japan plays rugby instead of American football (mismatch with them playing baseball but not cricket).
    Not sure its your area of expertise but i’m sure you would be able to make an engaging topic on it all the same.

    Thanks

  41. Hi Isaac,
    I’ve been a fan of your History of Japan podcast for the past year or so. I love the way you cover each topic with so much nuance and compassion. The series on Blackness in Japan is my recent favorite, and the epic Fall of the Samurai series is a gift that keeps on giving (I’ve already listened to the entire thing like three times).
    I was recently reading the book “A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things” by Raj Patel and Jason Moore. Among other things, it argues that the early modern Portuguese sugar plantations in Madeira, with their exploitation of slave labor and the island’s environment solely for the gain of the Europeans who invested in it (and who went on to re-invest the profits in other conquests), served as a template and springboard for European colonialism and modern capitalism in general. Later, profits generated from extreme exploitation in sugar plantations on the other side of the Atlantic continued to drive Western colonialism for centuries.

    This got me thinking about Satsuma’s sugar monopoly on Amami and other southwestern islands, and how it enabled Satsuma to overthrow the Tokugawa government. As you may know, over the course of about two centuries (1700s-1800s), Satsuma gradually intensified its exploitation of these islands by encouraging and eventually forcing sugarcane monoculture, buying up all of their sugar at a small fraction of the market price, causing the now vulnerable, underpaid islanders to starve in the thousands. Many islanders had no choice but to sell themselves into slavery to the island elites who ran the large plantations, and toward the end of the Edo Period, as many as one third of the population of Amami were slaves (yanchu 家人). The especially brutal last few decades were known as “kokutō jigoku 黒糖地獄”, where it is said that islanders were lashed for even licking the sugarcane they themselves had produced (I haven’t yet been able to verify this claim myself, but it’s an anecdote that gets thrown around a lot when people talk about kokutō jigoku). The vast profits from this “lucrative business“ enabled Satsuma to quickly eliminate their massive debt and helped pay for all their reforms and military campaigns leading up to the Meiji Restoration. These islands continued to struggle to feed themselves even after the sugar monopoly was abolished, and according to some accounts, the socioeconomic repercussions could be felt even into the 1980s. Furthermore, a similar business model of locking people up on a remote island and forcing them to produce sugar under brutal conditions continued on other islands like Minami Daitō Jima into the 20th century. (All of this, by the way, I’ve learned only quite recently after I moved to Okinawa, and wasn’t taught in my education in mainland Japan!)

    While it’s true that Satsuma was operating under a feudal framework of lords collecting tributes from peasants, and therefore it wasn’t technically the same thing as Western colonialism, it’s impossible not to notice the many parallels. Although there are no if’s in history, I can’t help but wonder if Japan, with Satsuma leading the way, wouldn’t have become a full-blown colonial power anyway without the West forcing us as Ishihara Kanji claimed. Anyway, I just thought the history of the sugar industry and proto(?)-colonialism of the Satsuma domain and how they helped fund the birth of modern Japan would be a great if grim topic for a History of Japan episode!

    Googling around, I was able to find only two sources in English. One is a book about Saigō Takamori that mentions the Amami sugar industry in passing (The Last Samurai by Mark Ravina), which, incidentally, seems to paint a rather rosy picture of Saigō’s contribution to the betterment of conditions on Amami after his exile there. The other is Defining Engagement: Japan and Global Contexts, 1640 – 1868 by Robert I. Hellyer; I haven’t read it myself, but judging from the online wiki article (see my link) that quotes it, I suspect that it downplays the severity of exploitation quite a bit (e.g. it’s pretty clear that yanchu were slaves for all intents and purposes, although they weren’t considered a separate caste or race of people, but the book seems to argue that the plantations did not use slavery or even indentured labor). There’s a decent number of primary sources, most of which are referenced in a handful of books written in Japanese. Unfortunately — reflecting the general lack of interest on this topic in Japan — most of these books are written by lay historians from these islands (who in my opinion have done a commendable job of reading through primary sources and drawing thoughtful conclusions, but nevertheless as a layperson myself I’m ill-equipped to judge the quality of their scholarship; they’re also not exactly unbiased sources, though all things being equal, I’m inclined to believe them over a mainlander such as myself), published by small local publishers in Okinawa, and several of them are out of print. I do own a couple of these books though, and I’m willing to personally translate and share them with you if you’re interested. There are also a few academic papers and articles written in Japanese by trained historians as well that I can point you to.

    It would be great if you as a historian could shed some much-needed light on this awfully under-discussed topic. Thanks and please keep up the amazing work!

  42. I love your show and have been binge listening to it for the last couple of weeks. As a Zen practicioner I really appreciate your perspective. I know you are not an expert in religion, but an historian you bring another dimension into the discussion that you don’t get from a philosopher or Zen teacher. Your episode on Dogen was really excellent.

    I would love to hear something on fuke Zen and the komuso. Also an episode on Soseki Natsume would be great. I love his novels but I have always suspected that there’s a lot of subtext I am missing.

  43. If you have another listener question roundup episode:

    If Japan thought that everything in Chinese culture was neato keeno, where were the eunuchs? Can’t have Chinese culture without both power-mad harpies and power-mad scheming snivellers. Who are the Confucian scholars supposed to blame for recurring collapses of government without both? I’m joking: Confucian scholars can always blame lack of virtue, but it certainly makes their lives easier to have both power-mad sets to blame.

  44. Episode idea: giant robots.

    I can provide a longer justification if you like, but I think the phrase justifies itself.

  45. Since you’re farming questions for another Q&A I figure I’ll toss a few your way.

    First, is there a subject that you’ve really wanted to do an episode on but for various reasons — lack of information for example — haven’t been able to?

    Second, is there a subject chosen for an episode that wound up interesting you more than you expected by the time you’d finished the episode? Conversely, is there one that didn’t turn out to be quite as interesting as you’d expected?

    I’ll also throw in a suggestion for a future episode: Cool Japan. Specifically the idea and history of Japan as a cultural exporter.

  46. Hello, Isaac here are potential questions (sorry if there are any repeats)
    How you get into history was it because of your interest in japan with karate or was it before that?
    You always talk about how china influences japan. What would you say is the biggest (or one of the biggest) way china was influenced by japan (Pre-Meiji)?
    As a high schooler looking for a place to go to college to study history. How did you decide on where to go and what do think I should look for?
    How do make sure your sources are accurate and truthful what do if you think (not know) if a source is making something up?
    Thank you for making such a great podcast about my favorite history subject and have a good day.

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