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Mar 30, 2014

Join us this week for a tale of Japan's rise to military greatness, as Yamagata Aritomo situates the army and navy during the 1880s for their rise to power and prominence. Under his leadership, Japan will defeat China, the unchallenged master of Asia for millennia. However, a new threat is looming on the horizon: the...


Mar 14, 2014

This week, we'll be beginning our first four-part series as we look at the rise to power of the Imperial Japanese Military. We'll be tracing the military from its origins in the fall of the Tokugawa to the start of war with China in 1937.

This week, we'll be covering the inception of the Imperial military, its early...


Mar 8, 2014

This week, we'll be going all Tom Cruise for our second media review, and discussing the actual history behind the mishmash of stories used as the background for the 2003 film The Last Samurai.


Mar 1, 2014

This week, we'll be doing our second Shogunal biography. We're going to discuss the life and legacy of the man who destroyed the Hojo family, established the Ashikaga bakufu, and who was until very recently reviled as the worst traitor in Japanese history: Ashikaga Takauji.