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Isaac Meyer

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.

History of Japan

As Japan enters the 1920s, national policy becomes increasingly liberalized--but Manchuria remains a holdout of extremists who, if anything, begin to take a more aggressive position on the "China Problem." How did that happen--and how did that aggressive position, seemingly overnight, become normalized back in Japan proper?
 
Show notes here.

Episode 608 - The Final Frontier, Part 4

This week: Japan's military and civilian leaders find themselves at a crossroads in Manchuria in the 1910s, as views begin to split around what the point of Japan's presence there even is. As Russia and China collapse into civil war, the new liberal post-WWI order will see the beginnings of a very different vision of what Japan's purpose on the Asian mainland even is. 
 
Show notes here.

Episode 607 - The Final Frontier, Part 3

This week: after the Russo-Japanese War, Japan inherited a rather unusual arrangement in Manchuria, which would become the basis of its empire in the region. But how, exactly, would that new empire function? And why, precisely, did it come attached to a corporation, of all things?
 
Show notes here.

Episode 606 - The Final Frontier, Part 2

This week, we're turning our attention to possibly the most unique of Japan's colonial ventures during the imperial era: Manchuria. Most know about Manchuria because of its role in the turbulent politics of the 1930s, but Japanese involvement in the region goes back quite a bit further. But first, what even is Manchuria in the first place?
 
Show notes here.

Episode 605 - The Final Frontier, Part 1

For a long time, the bureaucracy--in all its elitist, meritocratic glory--has taken a great deal of the credit for Japan's postwar economic miracle. But how much of that credit does it actually deserve? Plus, some ruminations on the post-1990s fate of the bureaucracy and its general history.
 
Show notes here.

Episode 604 - The Bureaucrats, Part 3

This week: the Meiji Bureaucracy, in all its glory. How did the system actually work? What sorts of people did it attract? And what happened when the United States tried to reform the system after 1945?
 
Show notes here.

Episode 603 - The Bureaucrats, Part 2

In America, when we think of bureaucracy, it doesn't conjure the best associations. In Japan, meanwhile, the bureaucracy has a long history as one of the central organs of the state. So, how did that happen, and why has the bureaucracy--rather uniquely among Japanese institutions--survived as long as it has?
 
Show notes here.

Episode 602 - The Bureaucrats, Part 1

One of the questions I get asked a lot is about grad school: what's it like, who's it for, what applications are like, and so on. But I've been out of academia for almost 10 years, so it's hard to say what things are like today. Fortunately, a listener and friend was willing to hop on and share her far more recent experiences!
 
Thanks again to Charlotte for sharing her story.
 
Show notes here.

Episode 601 - On Grad School (w/Charlotte Lai!)

Here we are again, my friends! It's been two years since our last Q and A, and now it's time for a new one. Thank you all for your questions, and here's to another 100.
 
Show notes here.

Episode 600 - The Six-Hundredth Episode

This week, we're talking about one of the oddest moments of the final years of feudalism: a spontaneous outbreak of dancing and religious worship collectively referred to as the "Ee Ja Nai Ka" movement. What was it, what motivated it, and how much can we even answer those questions to begin with?
 
Show notes here.

Episode 599 - Ain't It Grand?

This week: in 1940, a manuscript lost for over 600 years is recovered from the archives of the Imperial family. Within it lies the story of a fascinating woman, and her journey from imperial concubine to Buddhist nun--a journey that covers everything from high politics to the lives of common folk. 
 
Show notes here.

Episode 454 - That All my Dreams Might Not Prove Empty

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