Sep 4, 2026
This week: the Cowra breakout seemed, to those who lived through it, like it came out of nowhere. But nothing does, so what factors led to it? How did the breakout itself play out? And what are its legacies, both in terms of Australia-Japan relations and the wider question of Japanese "fanaticism" in WWII?
Show notes
Aug 28, 2026
In a wide-ranging episode intended just to be the introduction
to the largest mass prisoner breakout of WWII, we first have to
tackle...the history of Japan-Australia relations all the way up to
1940 and the role Australia played in Japanese militarist
thought.
Show notes
Aug 14, 2026
After Tokyo was burned to the ground, the battle over how to rebuild it began almost immediately. The man leading the charge--one of Japan's foremost bureaucrats--would become so frustrated with the experience that it would crush him completely. In the process, the fight would reveal some deep divisions over...