Episode 403 - Yet Shall He Find a Thousand Troubles

History of Japan

Isaac Meyer

Japan, History, Japanese

4.8 • 744 Ratings

🗓️ 27 August 2021

⏱️ 38 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This week, we're discussing Japan's reckoning with its wartime past through the lens of the nation's self-appointed conscience: the historian Ienaga Saburo, who spent 30 years locked in legal battles with the government over what could and could not be included in history textbooks.

Show notes here.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This week's episode is brought to you by Audible.
0:03.7	Audible has over 425,000 titles to choose from all compatible with iPhone, Android, Kindle, or your MP3 player of choice.
0:13.3	For listeners of the show, Audible is offering a free 30-day trial membership, complete with credit for a free audiobook of your choice.
0:20.6	You can cancel any time
0:21.8	and keep the free book or keep going with one of Audible subscription offers. Go to audibletrial.com
0:27.4	slash Japan to claim your offer. This week, I'm going to recommend The Essential Dogan by
0:34.2	Kazuaki Tanahashi and Peter Levitt. I've always been a big fan of Dogen's work.
0:40.0	My first course on the history of religion in Japan was focused on Zen Buddhism and particularly
0:45.1	on the writings of Dolgan, and I still go back to some of the stuff I read in that class.
0:50.1	It really shaped my worldview in a lot of ways. So if you're at all interested, go to audibletrial.com slash Japan to clean your copy.
1:20.4	Hello and welcome to the history of Japan podcast, episode 403, yet shall he find a thousand troubles.
1:28.7	The idea for this episode came from listener Jeff, who wrote me once upon a time with some lovely ideas for a podcast episode,
1:33.8	and yes, everyone, I do read your emails even when I'm not great about responding, and they mean the world to me. Jeff mentioned in his email that despite having lived in Japan for 20 years, he has
1:40.0	never heard anyone, including members of Japan's own government, discuss much of anything in
1:45.1	relation to Japan's wartime past, which presents, of course, an interesting contrast with one of
1:51.1	Japan's wartime allies, the German Federal Republic, which today has rebuilt Germany's image
1:57.0	as a responsible member of the world community which has grappled with its past,
2:01.8	reckoned with the wartime sins of the Nazis, and which has vowed never to allow the same
2:06.2	things to happen again.
2:08.5	What, Jeff wondered, accounted for the difference.
2:12.1	I think this is a great question, because I have lost track of the number of times I have
2:16.7	seen this brought up in popular discourse,
	...

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