Radio and PodcastLive Radio & PodcastsOpening Radio and Podcast...
Radio and PodcastLive Radio & PodcastsFetching podcast shows and categories...
Radio and PodcastLive Radio & PodcastsFetching podcast episodes...
A walk through the best bits of Japanese history with a focus on the key people, best stories and the funny little mistakes that created Japan
"How did it come to this?" - This must have been the question the Christian missionaries asked themselves as Hideyoshi followed by successiv...
To Christian missionaries, Japan was a most attractive prospect. Literate, cultured and rich - the Jesuits arrived in Japan in the 1500s and...
With the destruction of the Toyotomi at Osaka in 1615, the Tokugawa clan were unrivalled in their domination of Japan. They would establish...
The Siege of Osaka Castle in the winter of 1614-15 and the final Battle for Osaka Castle in the summer of 1615 marks the final chapter in th...
Tokugawa Ieyasu had won the Battle of Sekigahara in 1600 and set up organising Japan under his clan's domination. However, safely ensconced...
And the winner is of the Size-L Oda Nobunaga t-shirt - complete with his slogan "Tenka Fubu" (The Realm Subjected to Military Power) is……………...
OK - I'm going to draw out the winner of the competition THIS SATURDAY (Australian Eastern Standard Time) so if you haven't entered - get yo...
I went to Japan with 25 students and 2 other teachers. In this podcast I'll tell you where we went with a particular emphasis on the histori...
With Hideyoshi's body barely cold, the plotting and scheming began in earnest. This was the complete opposite of what Hideyoshi had hoped an...
My mother says that the cemetery is full of people who thought they were indispensable - but in Hideyoshi's case, he would have been right....
In 1592 and 1598 Hideyoshi pointed the enormous Japanese capacity for warfare at the task of conquering one of the greatest civilizations in...
Hideyoshi, in spite of being a warlord, transitioned Japan from a state of war to a state of peace. Though Japan wasn't finished with the se...
The rise of Hideyoshi from sandal bearer to dictator of Japan was phenomenal. After hundreds of year of civil war, he, without any sense of...
If murdering Nobunaga was Phase One of a long thought-out and well-considered plan for the take-over of Japan it certainly wasn't obvious in...
Hello. Just a quick note to say thank you for being patient. It is becoming a worrying habit - this apologising for keeping you waiting! The...
Between 1575 and 1582 Oda Nobunaga was sorely tested by the most powerful opponents to his domination; The Ikko Ikki Buddhists, the Takeda C...
In 1570 Oda Nobunaga faced a dangerous combination of rival daimyo and religious fanaticism. He decided to treat Buddhist rivals to his powe...
Oda Nobunaga took Kyoto in the name of the Shogun and the Emperor in 1568. By 1570 the Shogun knew that he served at Nobunaga's pleasure and...
Oda Nobunaga had the luck, the allies, the staff, the location, the armies and the validation to make a move on Kyoto while the other major...
In this episode we introduce one of Japan's three Great Unifiers. His rise to power was certainly not easy and could easily have relegated h...
The Portuguese bumped into Japan in 1543 and brought with them guns and god. In this podcast we will hear about how Japan received these pro...
War in medieval Japan was a colourful bonanza - bravery, cowardice and accounting!
The word sengoku means 'chaotic states' or 'warring states/countries' and 'jidai' means 'age - like 'iron age'. Betrayal, destruction, suffe...
The peasants of Japan finally get their turn at dealing out violence!
Every tourist who goes to Kyoto goes here - but its story, and that of the Silver Pavilion, are not well known
A walk through the best bits of Japanese history with a focus on the key people, best stories and the funny little mistakes that created Jap...
Did the Mongols get beaten by typhoons sent by the gods?
A walk through the best bits of Japanese history with a focus on the key people, best stories and the funny little mistakes that created Jap...
The names of Yoshitsune and Yoritomo of the Minamoto clan are legendary in Japanese history. But how did they seize power from the Taira? An...
Taira Kiyomori spared the lives of Yoritomo and Yoshitsune - two young children at the time - in order, allegedly, to sleep with their mothe...
In this episode we discuss the near-irrevocable usurpation of power by the warrior class; the samurai. For anyone thinking about going to Ky...
The Heian Era is sometimes seen as Japan's classical era. Great works of art, religious thought and crafty politicians make this era fascina...
Emperor Kammu builds Kyoto, gets pressured by a dead guy and the peasants do what they do best, get oppressed. Here is the script
In this episode I discuss the construction of the huge temple complex in Nara, Todaiji, the domination of Buddhism and vengeance of Empress...
In this podcast I'll be walking through the introduction of Buddhism to Japan, early Japanese attempts at literacy and why they thought Chin...
In this first episode I talk about the creation myths of Japan, the terribly unreliable source documents and the first emperor of Japan, Jim...