If the first translation of a text on smallpox vaccination in Japan was finished in 1820, how did it take another 29 years for the first mass vaccination campaigns to begin? The answers involve everything from a German doctor accused of being a spy to networks of physicians trying to navigate obscure bureaucracy. And they might remind you more of the last few years than you’d think.
The elimination of smallpox is probably one of the greatest medical accomplishments in human history. The vaccine that made it possible, however, was invented during a time of isolation for Japan. So how did the vaccine make it to Japanese shores, and what does that story tell us about public health, the sharing of information, and the nature of society in late feudal Japan?
We’re looking at the implosion of the Japanese New Left with a focus on the factional conflicts of the Zengakuren. How did a student youth movement end up divided into 20+ factions, the two largest of which engaged in a multi-decade war of assassination and street violence against each other? And how might that be connected to the general decline of Japan’s left-wing opposition more broadly?
We’re looking at a very different kind of 60s protest movement: an attempt to build a cross-sectarian, non-ideological movement to oppose the American war in Vietnam. How did the anti-Vietnam War movement emerge in its Japan, and how did it simultaneously grow to a massive size and fail to have any appreciable political impact?
We’re beginning a month on radical activism in the 1960s with a look at the student uprisings of 1968. Today is all about where those uprisings came from, how they’re related to the “two Zens” of the 1960s, and the specific example of the University of Tokyo, where a debate about student medical internships turned into a violent and bloody battle between leftist student groups.
A long-requested dive into the ronin police force known as the Shinsengumi. Who were the members of this group, and how, despite their rather marginal role in the history of the 1860s, have they become one of the most famous organizations in Japanese history?
This week is all about a biography of a fascinating figure of the Meiji Restoration: Oguri Tadamasa. But it’s also about much more: about how the present shapes our view of the past, and about how, as a result, the ways we talk about someone long dead can shift and change as well.
This week, we wrap up our imperial biographies with a look at the Meiji Emperor’s relationship to three important aspects of his reign: the constitution, the wars fought in his name, and his heir. Plus, we talk Meiji’s death, and his legacy.
This week: the life of the Meiji Emperor in the turbulent 1870s and 1880s. We’ll cover everything from the birth…
This week: the boy emperor Meiji takes responsibility for Japan’s future. But what did that mean in practice? What does…