This week's episode is brought to you by Audible.

Audible has over 180,000 titles to choose from, all compatible with iPhone, Android,

Kindle, or your MP3 player of choice.

For listeners of the show, Audible is offering a free 30-day trial membership,

complete with a credit for a free audiobook of your choice.

You can cancel any time and keep the free book or keep going with one of Audible's subscription

offers.

Go to audibletrial.com slash Japan to claim your offer.

This week I'm going to recommend 1491 by Charles Mann.

Man attempts to bring fresh eyes to the Americas before European contact and to fight the idea

that the region was somehow home to simplistic or underdeveloped cultures.

I'm not enough of an expert in the period to evaluate all the claims made inside the book,

but I do think it's a great example of providing a counter-narrative to the dominant assessment

in popular culture of the pre-Columbus Americas.

Go to audibletrial.com slash Japan to claim your copy. Hello and welcome to the history of Japan podcast.

Episode 259, The City That Never Sleeps, Part 2.

By 1700, Edo Japan was at its zenith. The period known as the Genroku

era, the period from 1688 to 1704, is generally considered to be one of the high water

marks of Japanese culture, a time of economic growth and cultural flowering. It's also really the moment by which it was clear that Edo was Japan's premier city.

The merchant houses of Osaka may have been older.

Kyoto may have had a more traditional culture, but the real action was in the capital.

It's also by this period that the city started to take the form we'd recognize today, starting

...