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May 28, 2021

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.


May 21, 2021

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


May 14, 2021

This week, in the first of a four part series on piracy in Japan, we're covering the background of piracy before the Sengoku civil wars. How did Japan's pirates interact with the complexities of Japan's classical and medieval world?

Show notes


May 7, 2021

This week we're going deep into the bizarre theories of Japanese Israelism: the conspiracy theory that modern Japanese people are descended in whole or part from the same ancestors as Jews. I'll take you through the basics of these theories, with plenty of barely hidden scorn for their idiocy to light our shared...