History of Japan

Thank you all to every single one of you who has ever listened to this podcast. Show notes here.

This week: how did three soldiers who managed to do something rather unexceptional--dying in Japan's battles in China--manage to become the centerpiece of a state-run cult of heroism? Show notes here.

This week, we're talking about a pair of anchors in a Chinese museum and the tortured path they took to get there. What do the anchors have to do with a "correct" (from the view of the Chinese Communist Party) understanding of history--and how does Japan fit into that story? Show notes here.

This week, we're traveling the breadth of Japanese history to answer a seemingly simple question: why is it that so very many of us have heard of haiku? What is so special about this style of poetry, and how did it come to have such global appeal? Show notes here.

This week, we're covering the transformation of the collapsed LTCB into the revived Shinsei ("New Life") Bank, and the motley cast of American investors and Japanese executives who made this once unthinkable financial future a reality. What led to decades of fiscal tradition being scrapped, and what have the impacts of this choice been? Show notes here.

This week: a combination of political scandals, tabloid journalism, institutional inertia, and of course the goddamn Swiss lead to the long, slow, death of LTCB. Show notes here.

This week, we're returning to the era of the bubble economy and its aftermath with an up close look at the failure of one of Japan's most prominent banks: the Long Term Credit Bank of Japan, or LTCB. First: how did LTCB dig itself so deeply into an economic hole? Show notes here.

This week, we're wrapping up our month on piracy by looking at how the image of "Japanese pirates" became so prevalent in Korea and China, and what we actually know about all the pirating that was going on during this time. Show notes here.

This week, we're talking about how Hideyoshi finally tamed Japan's pirates, and why that makes them so hard to understand from a historical perspective. Show notes here.

This week, we're focusing on the height of piracy during the civil wars in Japan, and in particular the powerful Murakami pirate families. How did these families make their money? What did their raids look like? And what was their relationship to the warlords on land? Show notes here.