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

Audible has over 425,000 of 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

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 subscription offers. Go to audibletrial.com

slash Japan to claim your offer. This week I'm going to recommend unfabling the East,

The Enlightenment's Encounter with Asia by Jürgen Osterhammel.

This is a fascinating topic that I've actually wanted to do an episode on for a while.

One of the interesting things about the European Enlightenment is that European thinkers

spent a lot of time thinking about, talking about, and discussing what was going on in Asia.

Oster Hamill's book is all about taking this discourse, explaining where it comes from,

and unpacking its history. Why are a bunch of thinkers in France so worked up about what's

going on off in China? Well, go to audibletrial.com slash Japan, give it a listen, and find out.

Hello. Hello and welcome to the History of Japan podcast, Episode 308, The Prisoners of Nambu, part three.

As the fall of 1643 set in, the crew of the Breskins remained confined in Edo. Admittedly, the situation could have been worse. They could have been in the torture pits of Hottama Samori,

like the Jesuit fathers captured around the same time they had been, whose torture was ongoing until they recanted their faith once more.

Having so recanted, they would be Japaneseized just like Father Ferreira slash Saoan O'Chuan,

and turned both into symbols of the powerlessness of Christianity before the Shogun and weapons against the Christian faith.

So yes, it could have been much worse.

Really, by the fall, it was clear to the Dutch that they were safe.

The Shogun's suspicions of a potential alliance between the two factions of Christians

...