My name is Isaac Meyer, and I’m a former PhD student at the University of Washington, specializing in modern Japan (with sub-specializations in modern China, modern Europe, and international relations). Today, I work as a teacher at an independent school in the Seattle area.
I also have a tendency to go off on random historical tangents. One day, I decided to combine these two traits in podcast form, and thus was born the History of Japan Podcast!
In 2018, I decided start the Criminal Records Podcast with my wife, Demetria Spinrad. This podcast gives me the chance to talk about world history–and the weird, wonderful world of historical crime and punishment.
Very interesting episode about an issue I knew nothing about.
I’m wondering whether there another side of the story, a dog that didn’t bark, or rather a cow that didn’t moo or a sheep that didn’t bleat – lack of widespread pastoralism that in other countries causes much deforestation and prevents reforestation since it makes lands marginal to farming valuable even without trees on it, which seemed not to have been the case in Japan.
V. much enjoyed this episode, but inevitably it raised as many questions as it answered.
1. Japanese demography is critical, but – unless I missed it – you rarely mentioned what was happening to the population over time. Was it like the UK – relatively sparsely populated till industrialization – or like France (or China), already heavily populated in earlier times thanks to prosperous agriculture
2. On a related point, could you do an episode or two on natural disasters in Japanese history? Earthquakes, obviously, fires – you mentioned, but were any on the scale of London 1666 or SF 1905? And what about plagues, which played such an important part in European history?
3. In general, you have not said much about economic history – I guess that’s not your field. But a few salient questions would be interesting, notably: how did Japanese living standards compare to Europe (and China) before industrialization?Also: were Japanese peasants tied to their daimyo like feudal serfs in medieval Europe? could they move around and sell their labour? Did the bakufu control domestic trade under the Tokugawa? Could peasants mover freely to live in the cities? etc etc
4. You did mention Japanese respect for nature as a factor helping to explain the preservation of its forests. I wondered whether the Japanese have ever suffered from the schizophrenic European attitude in this respect. While seeing forests as the last refuge of true nature, spontaneity, integrity etc etc (viz As You Like It, Rousseau’s Noble Savage, German Romantics etc), Europeans also always feared the forest (e.g. Bros Grimm fairy tales) – not surprisingly since you could get lost in them, or eaten by wolves or bears. Walking the woodland paths in Japan, you often see signs warning about bears, often with a bell to ring (heaven knows what use that’s supposed to be, but “so des”!), so they must still be around in Japan.
Surely there’s enough here for a few (dozen) episodes?
regards
Laurence Copeland
When I was in grad school environmental history was just taking off as field within history. I’m so glad you did something in this discipline. How can we expect to formulate sound policies to manage our precious planet without knowing where we’ve been?
After listening to this podcast I wondered if there was something else that you didn’t mention contributing to Japan’s surviving forests namely the fact that much of the country lives in dense urban areas. With people living in dense cities it means that few forests and green spaces get knocked down and paved over to make for the 3 bedroom houses with 2 car garages. How and when did Japan embark on a policy of encouraging dense cities? Undergirding that density is Japan’s incredible passenger rail network. I was so impressed by the Tokyo subway and the JR, it really put my humble (and suffering) DC metro to shame; I rode the Yamanote line to go nowhere in particular (and considered doing the same with the Shinkansen thanks to the JR Pass). So I was wondering, do you think you could do a podcast on the history transportation in Japan?