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

Audible has over 425,000 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 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

Descartes in 90 Minutes by Paul Stratherne. Having recently had the pleasure of teaching Descartes for the first time,

I can testify firsthand to the fact that he is both very interesting and very confusing.

And if you share that opinion, well, this is a great resource for you.

It certainly helped me out quite a bit.

So if you're curious, check out audibletrial.com slash Japan to claim your copy.

Hello and welcome to the history of Japan podcast, episode 388, The First of Us.

I think it is fair to say that there are one or two people out there in the world who are not Japanese, but who, by hook or by crook, came to develop an interest in some kind of Japanese history or culture.

I mean, I certainly hope there are.

Someone must be downloading this podcast.

Or I'm trapped in some kind of Cartesian-style mastercrafted illusion of being a moderately

successful podcaster, which I can only escape by rejecting

all that I cannot demonstrably prove to be true. But there's no time for me to consider that option,

because I have an episode to record. Clearly, interest in Japan is not a recent phenomenon. For as long as

Europeans at least have been coming to the country, they've

been writing home about what an interesting and fascinating place it is. And not just Europeans.

...