Épisodes

  • James D.J. Brown, "Cracking the Crab: Russian Espionage Against Japan, from Peter the Great to Richard Sorge" (Hurst, 2025),

    James D.J. Brown, "Cracking the Crab: Russian Espionage Against Japan, from Peter the Great to Richard Sorge" (Hurst, 2025),
    Jul 17 2025
    The Russians came late to Japan, arriving after the Portuguese and other European powers. But as soon as they arrived, Russia tried to use spies and espionage to learn more about their neighbor—with various degrees of success. Sometimes, it failed miserably, like Russia’s early attempts to make contact with pre-Meiji Japan, or the debacle during the Russo-Japanese War. Other times, they were wildly successful, like during the Battle of Khalkin Gol or with Richard Sorge’s spy ring during the Second World War. James D. Brown covers Russia and the Soviet Union’s efforts to learn more about Japan in Cracking the Crab: Russian Espionage Against Japan, from Peter the Great to Richard Sorge (Hurst, 2025), covering much both the famous examples of Russian spycraft, and the lesser-known missions—like Operation Postman, a successful effort to read the mail of Japanese diplomats in Italy. James is Professor of Political Science at Temple University, Japan. He is a specialist on East Asian politics and a regular media contributor, including for the BBC. His books include Japan, Russia and their Territorial Dispute (Routledge: 2016); and Japan’s Foreign Relations in Asia (Routledge: 2018) and The Abe Legacy (Lexington Books: 2023) You can find more reviews, excerpts, interviews, and essays at The Asian Review of Books, including its review of Cracking the Crab. Follow on Twitter at @BookReviewsAsia. Nicholas Gordon is an editor for a global magazine, and a reviewer for the Asian Review of Books. He can be found on Twitter at@nickrigordon. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/japanese-studies
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    42 min
  • Sonia C. Gomez, "Picture Bride, War Bride: The Role of Marriage in Shaping Japanese America" (NYU Press, 2024)

    Sonia C. Gomez, "Picture Bride, War Bride: The Role of Marriage in Shaping Japanese America" (NYU Press, 2024)
    Jul 15 2025
    Picture Bride, War Bride examines how the institution of marriage created pockets of legal and social inclusion for Japanese women during the period of Japanese exclusion. Gomez’s work joins together an analysis of picture brides, or Japanese women who migrated to the United States to join husbands whom they married [in absentia] in the early 20th century, with war brides, or Japanese women who married American military servicemen after World War II. By combining the analysis of these two categories, Gomez centralizes the overlapping and conflicting logics to either racially exclude Japanese or facilitate their inclusion via immigration legislation that privileged wives and mothers. In short, the book tells a story of how the interplay between societal norms and political interests can both harness and contradict the interconnected frameworks of race, gender, and sexuality. Donna Doan Anderson (she/her) is a research assistant professor in the department of History at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/japanese-studies
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    1 h et 4 min
  • Zev Handel, "Chinese Characters Across Asia: How the Chinese Script Came to Write Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese" (U Washington Press, 2025)

    Zev Handel, "Chinese Characters Across Asia: How the Chinese Script Came to Write Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese" (U Washington Press, 2025)
    Jul 3 2025
    For centuries, scribes across East Asia used Chinese characters to write things down–even in languages based on very different foundations than Chinese. In southern China, Japan, Korea and Vietnam, people used Chinese to read and write–and never thought it was odd. It was, after all, how things were done. Even today, Cantonese speakers use Chinese characters to reflect their dialect with no issues, while kanji remains a key part of Japanese writing. Even in South Korea, the Chosun Ilbo newspaper uses Chinese characters for its title, even as most of Korea has turned to hangul. Zev Handel talks about how classical Chinese came to dominate East Asia in his book Chinese Characters across Asia: How the Chinese Script Came to Write Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese (University of Washington Press, 2025). How do Chinese characters even work? How did Chinese script spread across the region? And what was it like to read and write in a language that you couldn’t even speak? Zev Handel is professor of Chinese linguistics in the Department of Asian Languages and Literature at the University of Washington. He is author of Sinography: The Borrowing and Adaptation of the Chinese Script and associate coeditor of Encyclopedia of Chinese Language and Linguistics. You can find more reviews, excerpts, interviews, and essays at The Asian Review of Books, including its review of Chinese Characters Across Asia. Follow on Twitter at @BookReviewsAsia. Nicholas Gordon is an editor for a global magazine, and a reviewer for the Asian Review of Books. He can be found on Twitter at @nickrigordon. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/japanese-studies
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    47 min
  • NIAS Podcast from the University of Tartu Asia Centre: Migration Policies and Realities in Estonia and Japan

    NIAS Podcast from the University of Tartu Asia Centre: Migration Policies and Realities in Estonia and Japan
    Jul 2 2025
    This Nordic Asia Podcast episode explores how Estonia and Japan, two countries under demographic pressure with different immigration histories, are managing the integration of foreign labour. Despite Estonia’s EU membership and Japan’s more recent policy shifts, both nations face labour shortages due to rapidly ageing populations. Estonia maintains a controlled but gradually liberalised immigration policy, while Japan has adopted Technical Intern Training Program (TITP). The system that will be replaced in coming years with a new program aiming for better job mobility and stronger language requirements. A key theme throughout is the role of language as a structural barrier. In both countries, immigrants’ language proficiency remains low: only 11% achieve fluency in Estonian, while Japan’s pre-arrival language training often falls short of workplace demands. This barrier limits not only job mobility, but also social integration and emotional well-being. The dominance of local languages in workplace culture fosters exclusion, even when basic communication in English or Japanese is possible. Support systems also diverge. Estonia offers spouse integration programs and community-based language initiatives, whereas Japan restricts family migration under most visa categories. The discussion emphasises that language barriers are not simply logistical, they are also deeply embedded in social expectations and everyday interaction. In sum, while Estonia and Japan face similar demographic challenges, their tools, legal frameworks, and cultural attitudes toward foreign labour differ sharply. Estonia’s EU-aligned policies and family-inclusive approach may offer valuable lessons to Japan. Conversely, Estonia could learn from Japan’s structured pre-arrival preparation programs to improve early-stage immigrant adaptation. Ultimately, the episode argues that integration is not just a matter of policy, it is a broader societal test of inclusivity and resilience. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/japanese-studies
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    34 min
  • Sven Saaler, Kudō Akira, and Tajima Nobuo eds., "Mutual Perceptions and Images in Japanese-German Relations, 1860-2010" (Brill, 2017)

    Sven Saaler, Kudō Akira, and Tajima Nobuo eds., "Mutual Perceptions and Images in Japanese-German Relations, 1860-2010" (Brill, 2017)
    Jul 1 2025
    Mutual Perceptions and Images in Japanese-German Relations, 1860-2010 (Brill, 2017) examines the mutual images formed between Japan and Germany from the mid-nineteenth to twenty-first centuries, and the influence of these images on the development of bilateral relations. Unlike earlier research on Japanese-German relations, which focused on the similarity of these countries' historical trajectories, this publication presents a more nuanced picture. It relativizes perceptions of a special "spiritual relationship" between Japan and Germany as well as their commonalities of "national character" through an exploration of previously untapped historical visual and textual sources. With essays by sixteen leading scholars in the field, this collection is an invaluable contribution to the historiography of modern Japan and Germany, and to the field of international relations. Contributors are: Hans-Joachim Bieber, Fukuoka Mariko, Hakoishi Hiroshi, Iwasa Takurō, Katō Yōko, Kawakita Atsuko, Gerhard Krebs, Kudō Akira, Heinrich Menkhaus, Danny Orbach, Peter Pantzer, Sven Saaler, Satō Takumi, Volker Stanzel, Suzuki Naoko, Tajima Nobuo, Tano Daisuke, and Rolf-Harald Wippich. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/japanese-studies
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    1 h et 12 min
  • Lieba Faier, "The Banality of Good: The UN's Global Fight Against Human Trafficking" (Duke UP, 2024)

    Lieba Faier, "The Banality of Good: The UN's Global Fight Against Human Trafficking" (Duke UP, 2024)
    Jun 22 2025
    In The Banality of Good: The UN’s Global Fight against Human Trafficking (Duke University Press, 2024), Dr. Lieba Faier examines why contemporary efforts to curb human trafficking have fallen so spectacularly short of their stated goals despite well-funded campaigns by the United Nations and its member-state governments. Focusing on Japan’s efforts to enact the UN’s counter-trafficking protocol and assist Filipina migrants working in Japan’s sex industry, Dr. Faier draws from interviews with NGO caseworkers and government officials to demonstrate how these efforts disregard the needs and perspectives of those they are designed to help. She finds that these campaigns tend to privilege bureaucracies and institutional compliance, resulting in the compromised quality of life, repatriation, and even criminalization of human trafficking survivors. Dr. Faier expands on Hannah Arendt’s idea of the “banality of evil” by coining the titular “banality of good” to describe the reality of the UN’s fight against human trafficking. Detailing the protocols that have been put in place and evaluating their enactment, Dr. Faier reveals how the continued failure of humanitarian institutions to address structural inequities and colonial history ultimately reinforces the violent status quo they claim to be working to change. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose new book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/japanese-studies
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    59 min
  • James D. Brown, "Cracking the Crab: Russian Espionage Against Japan, from Peter the Great to Richard Sorge" (Hurst, 2025)

    James D. Brown, "Cracking the Crab: Russian Espionage Against Japan, from Peter the Great to Richard Sorge" (Hurst, 2025)
    Jun 19 2025
    Richard Sorge is one of history’s most famous spies. This hard-drinking, womanising, motorcycle-crashing Soviet officer penetrated the German embassy in Tokyo during the 1930s and gathered intelligence credited with changing the course of the Second World War. It is an intriguing tale; but Sorge’s spy ring was just one chapter in a much longer history of Russian and Soviet espionage in and against Japan. Cracking the Crab: Russian Espionage Against Japan, from Peter the Great to Richard Sorge (Hurst, 2025) by Dr. James D Brown tells the extraordinary full story of Russian intrigue targeting Japan, from first encounters in the eighteenth century to the Soviet declaration of war in August 1945. Colourful episodes include Gojong, King of Korea, being smuggled into the Russian legation dressed as a woman in 1896; the 1927 ‘Tanaka Memorial’, an infamous forgery purporting to be Japan’s hidden plan for world domination; and the secret intelligence of ‘Nero’, a Soviet agent supplying invaluable insight into Japanese strategy during the Second World War. From Russians murdered in broad daylight in Meiji Tokyo to Soviet honey traps and ‘white magic’ at the Battle of Nomonhan, this is a landmark history of the covert struggle between two great powers of the modern age. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find Miranda’s interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/japanese-studies
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    32 min
  • Jeremy A. Yellen, "Japan at War, 1914-1952" (Routledge, 2024)

    Jeremy A. Yellen, "Japan at War, 1914-1952" (Routledge, 2024)
    Jun 10 2025
    Japan at War, 1914-1952 is a synthetic and interpretive history that highlights the centrality of war to the modern Japanese experience. The author argues that war was central to Japanese life in this period--the era when Japan rose and fell as a world power. The volume examines how World War I set off profound changes that led to the rise of a politicized military, aggressive imperial expansion, and the militarization of Japanese social, political, and economic life. War was extraordinarily popular, which helped confirm Japan's aggressive imperialism in the 1930s and war across the Asia-Pacific in the 1940s. It took a defeat by 1945 and occupation through 1952 to undo war as a national concern and to remake Japan into a peaceful nation-state. In telling this story of Japan in war and peace, this book highlights the importance of Japan in the creation of the modern world. This study of political power and its influences in domestic and foreign affairs will be of great value to nonspecialist readers who are interested in this period, undergraduate and postgraduate students in introductory classes, and scholars interested in Japanese history and political, military, and international history. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/japanese-studies
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    1 h et 4 min