Dec 29, 2023

This week, we're taking a look at some of the economic and social structures of Kamakura period Japan in order to answer the question: just what makes medieval Japan so...medieval?

Also, I'll be taking next week off for the New Year. See you all in 2024!

Show notes

Dec 22, 2023

This week: why did the Mongols invade Japan? How did a seemingly invincible military machine falter in its assaults on the island of Kyushu? And why, in the long term, did the Mongol invasions begin the process of bringing down the Kamakura shogunate?

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Dec 15, 2023

This week: the advent of the medieval era brings with it new strands of Buddhism that will radically remake the image of the religion from an aristocratic faith to a distinctly Japanese one. So, how do the wildly different beliefs of Zen, Pure Land, and Nichiren Buddhism all grow out of the same moment in...

Dec 8, 2023

This week: the rise of the Minamoto clan, the destruction of the Taira clan, and the birth of a new kind of political arrangement in the form of Japan's first shogunate.

Show notes here. 

Dec 1, 2023

This week, we're covering the beginnings of the rise of the samurai class by looking at the wars of the 1000s, as well as the Hogen and Heiji conflicts which secured the role of the military class in national politics.

Show notes here.