Episode 29 - Dr. Lisa Yoshikawa (Hobart & William Smith)

In this episode, Dr. Lisa Yoshikawa chronicles how professional historians in the Meiji and Taisho Periods legitimized imperialism as they attempted to elevate the discipline of history within Japanese academia.  We discuss the mobilization of history and myth to justify colonialism, the development of academic history in the Meiji period, and scholars' complicity with interwar illiberalism before considering the politics of historical memory along with legacies for Japanese historians and historiographies in the postwar and today. (Transcript here).