Places & movement
How have railways, migration and urban growth shaped where people live, work and travel?
The Archive / A history seriesMaking
Making
Japan.
The History Behind the Japan You See
With Rashaad Eshack, PhD
Lecture & podcast series · Coming soon
How did Japan
become Japan?
A lecture and podcast series exploring how the political, social, cultural, and economic transformations of modern Japanese history produced the Japan we encounter today.
Japan as you experience it today has a history. This series asks how it came to look, feel, and function the way it does.
Questions behind the series
Look closer. Go further back.
Japan & the world
How have empire, borders and encounters overseas shaped ideas of Japan and who belongs?
Everyday lives
What can food, education and consumer culture tell us about a society being made and remade?
Your historian
Rashaad Eshack, PhD
I’m a historian of Japan and the person behind Atlas & Archive. I completed my PhD in Japanese Studies at the University of Cambridge, researching empire, education and citizenship.
Making Japan brings that curiosity into a series of accessible, in-depth lectures, connecting historical questions with the places and experiences we encounter today.
More about RashaadWatch or listen · Coming soon
Make time
for a deeper story.
The series is in development, with lectures planned for around 30–40 minutes. Watch on YouTube or listen to the same lecture as a podcast.
Episodes and listening links will appear here when the series launches. In the meantime, explore the histories and reflections already in the Archive.
Explore the Archive