Episode 53 - Dr. Maren Ehlers (North Carolina-Charlotte)

In this episode, Dr. Maren Ehlers re-examines social relations in rural communities in central Japan in the years leading up to the Meiji Restoration, centering on poverty and poor relief programs for marginalized groups such as beggars and outcastes.  We discuss the impacts of severe famine on rural villagers, changing expectations of benevolent government in the Tokugawa moral economy, and the increase of internal unrest and rural upheaval from the 1850s. (Transcript here).