The blog does Japan's past ....on the wireless ...now

I have to confess my knowledge of Japan's history is sketchy.

So apart from Samurai warriors who existed on the backs of a peasant economy, a vague memory of Emperors and war lords, what I know starts with Captain Perry's visit in 1854, and Japan's aggressive actions in in the 1930s and 40, its defeat and the post war recovery.

All of which means that this edition of In Our Time was vey illuminating, concerning as it did The Shimabara Rebellion in 1637.

"Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Christian uprising in Japan and its profound and long-term consequences.

In the 1630s, Japan was ruled by the Tokagawa Shoguns, a military dynasty who, 30 years earlier, had unified the country, ending around two centuries of civil war. In 1637 a rebellion broke out in the province of Shimabara, in the south east of the country. It was a peasants’ revolt, following years of bad harvests in which the local lord had refused to lower taxes. Many of the rebels were Christians, and they fought under a Christian banner.

The central government’s response was merciless. They met the rebels with an army of 150 000 men, possibly the largest force assembled anywhere in the world during the Early Modern period. Once the rebellion had been suppressed, the Shogun enforced a ban on Christianity and expelled nearly all foreigners from the country. Japan remained more or less completely sealed off from the rest of the world for the next 250 years.

With Satona Suzuki, Lecturer in Japanese and Modern Japanese History at SOAS, University of London, Erica Baffelli, Professor of Japanese Studies at the University of Manchester and Christopher Harding, Senior Lecturer in Asian History at the University of Edinburgh.

Producer Luke Mulhall"

Picture; Illustrated Story of Night Attack on Yoshitsune's Residence At Horikaw, 16th century, Tokyo National Museum  Photographer Lepidlizard, September 2008. Licensing I, the copyright holder of this work, release this work into the public domain. This applies worldwideI grant anyone the right to use this work for any purpose, without any conditions, unless such conditions are required by law.

*The Shimabara Rebellion, https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001lrd7