History of Japan

This week: the history of tourism in Japan goes back shockingly far. Its roots, in fact, lie in the Tokugawa period, when a road network meant to secure the geopolitical advantages of the shogun in Edo turned out to also be pretty good for hitting the town with your friends to go get drunk on your way to Ise shrine. This week: what was it like to wander Japan's great roads during the height of feudalism?
Show notes here.

This week: how does the structure of the medieval Japanese economy compare to that of medieval Europe? What even is a shoen, and is it anything like a manor or a fief? And how do these systems help lead to the rise of the warrior class in Japan, and bring about the age of civil war in Japan? Overall, what do we think of the idea of medieval Japan as a "feudal state"?

Show notes here.

There's a bit of a division in the scholarship on medieval Japan regarding whether "feudalism" is a useful scholarly category to study the period. So if we actually look at the history, what are these scholars arguing over? And what can we make of their arguments?
Show notes here.

What is feudalism? It's a surprisingly hard question to answer, and one that raises an interesting follow up. Here on the podcast I've been describing medieval Japan as a "feudal state" for a long time, but should I even be doing that?
Show notes here.

This week: the East Asia Anti-Japan Armed Front publishes its manifesto, and spreads beyond its original four members. But after a few months of terror bombings (and one completely botched attempt to assassinate Hirohito), the group is brought low and its members--with a few exceptions--end up in prison. 
That story today, plus a question: in the end, what did all this actually accomplish?
Show notes here.