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This week, I'm going to recommend The Thousand Names by Django Wexler.

It's the first part in a five-book series that, unlike some authors I

could name, is actually now finished, so you don't have to worry about the author dying first,

or HBO finishing the show before the books are done, or any crazy nonsense like that.

I don't want to say too much about it, because I'm afraid I'd spoil the plot.

Just know that I picked it up without knowing what I was getting into, fell in love,

and I recommend it wholeheartedly to anyone and everyone.

Go to audibletrial.com slash Japan to claim your copy. Hello and welcome to the History of Japan podcast, episode 231, The Measure of an Emperor, Part 6.

Hirohito was in many ways a man forced to adapt to a world he was utterly unprepared for.

His whole education had been geared towards preparing him for a position of, if not supreme,

authority, than at least supreme influence.

By the 1950s, however, he'd been stripped of all but his most ceremonial powers.

As we've covered last week, he didn't always adapt well to that new reality.

On occasion, he violated both the spirit and the letter of new Japanese law

in his attempts to influence policy. On occasion, he was rather harshly reminded of the

new order of things, as in April of 1951. In that year, Hirohito's protector of six years,

General Douglas MacArthur, was relieved

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