At the beginning of this period, for reasons I'll talk about in a minute, Japan has the chance to almost press the reset button on its history and its culture, and it's just fascinating what it does with that opportunity.

That was Christopher Harding, talking about the creation of modern Japan. You're listening to the History Extra podcast from BBC History Magazine,

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Hello and welcome to the History Extra podcast. I'm Rob Atar, the editor of BBC History

magazine. Today you're going to hear from Dr Christopher Harding, a historian and author whose

latest book explores the story of Japan's recent past. Our staff writer Ellie Cawthorne met up

with him late last year to find out more.

So today's podcast guest is Christopher Harding.

Christopher is an academic based at the University of Edinburgh,

and he specialises as an Asian cultural history.

His most recent book is Japan's story in search of a nation 1850 to the present,

which delves into Japanese culture over the last 160 odd years

to reveal a nation that was grappling both with its own national identity

and with the challenges of defining that identity, despite an onslaught of dizzying modernisation.

So Christopher, why are the last 168 years right now of Japan's history so fascinating to study?

For me, it's this idea that you have this chance to recreate a nation, you know, to start again.

I think a nation's national identity is always up for grabs to some extent.

But at the beginning of this period, for reasons I'll talk about in a minute, Japan has the chance to almost press the reset button on its history and its culture.

And it's just fascinating what it does with that opportunity.

...