Hello, the episode you're about to listen to is part of a multi-part series introducing an overview

of Japanese history.

This is a repeat of one of the original projects the History of Japan podcast was built on,

and is intended to serve as an update and supplement to these original works.

After 10 years, my hope is to return to this approach and to do it a little bit better,

given the skills that I have improved in the intervening years.

If you haven't been doing so already, you should listen to these episodes sequentially,

starting with episode 501.

Without any further ado, enjoy the episode.

Hello and welcome to the History of Japan podcast, episode 515, slouching towards Kyoto.

For my money, one of the most interesting recurring debates in history as a discipline,

and one we're going to turn to

quite a bit over the coming months, is the question of what drives the events of history themselves.

Is history the result of complex, long-term, impersonal changes in social, economic, and political

trends? In other words, is historical change driven by systems, which are larger

than any of us, or is it driven by the actions of individuals whose presence or absence at key

moments determines how things unfold? The reality, of course, likely lies somewhere in the

middle, but where exactly? That's a hard question to answer,

and I think the difficulties of it are illustrated nicely by the downfall of the Kamakura Bakfu.

We've been covering over the last few weeks the growing weaknesses of the government of the Hojo clan,

set up in Kamakura on the eastern side of Honshu to maintain and reward

the coalition of warrior families, which had won the Genpei War.

...