I've been watching Show Gun on Hulu recently and really enjoying it. It's a really well-constructed narrative mash up of fish out of water,

culture clash, romance, political thriller, and spectacle war movie. The acting is great, the costumes are

rich, the cinematography is transporting, it's all around a great show.

But while I am invested in the characters and their journeys, one of the things that really

peaks my curiosity is the real history of feudal Japan at the time. The year is

somewhere around 1600 and Wikipedia tells me that this is the tumultuous end to

the Azuchi mamoyama period, but that's academic. What's interesting is the style of government,

the evolution of power. There are fragile alliances, strained institutions and tenuous agreements,

but ultimately it's a tale of warlords.

Those with enough will and courage to take power,

concentrate it, and then take some more.

Of course, warlords have been with us throughout history and not just in Japan.

Even right now in 2024, warlords are tearing Haiti apart, for instance,

upending democracy and sewing a lawless chaos.

There's one warlord there known as

barbecue though he swears the nickname comes from his mother's roadside chicken

joint and not his tendency for burning his enemies alive. And in the 4th century,

b.C. there was Philip II of Macedon,

the man that defeated what we know is classical Greece,

whose conquest was second only to that of his son Alexander the Great.

And that's the story we bring you on today Saturday matinee, with an episode from Warlords of

History, a podcast that uncovers the lifetimes and achievements of warlords from ancient and medieval times.

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