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This week, I'm going to recommend a brief history of the samurai by Jonathan Clements.

It's exactly what it sounds like, though at 12 hours long, I don't know how brief I would call it,

and presents a well-thought-out view of the rise and fall of the warrior class that dominated Japan

for 900-odd years.

I'm working my way through it now, and I like everything I've heard.

Go to audible trial.com slash Japan to claim your copy. Hello and welcome to the History of Japan podcast.

Episode 97, The North Remembers.

This week, we're going to go back and address one of the gaps I've left in Japanese history.

We're going to discuss the history of a people who, for a long time, ruled themselves,

and operated independently from the Japanese state we've spent so much time discussing.

It's time to talk about the Ainu.

First, I want to clarify two things, who the Ainu are and what their relationship is

with a different group of people, the Amishi.

So first, the Ainu are an entirely separate ethnic group from what we think of as Japanese.

Best we can figure, they arose from a cultural mixing of prehistoric migrants to Japan,

with prehistoric inhabitants of what is now, Russian Siberia, and Kamchatka.

...