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This week I'm going to recommend Ruth Bader Ginsburg A Life by Jane Sharon DeHart.

Justice Ginsburg is, of course, an important figure in American history because of her

transformative opinions, a fact that is all the easier to recognize in the wake of her passing.

But her life course is also a fascinating one, and I have to say I'm really inspired by it,

not just as an American,

but as a Jewish American. Go to audible trial.com slash Japan to claim your copy. Hello and welcome to the history of Japan podcast, episode 357, A Nation in a Nation, part one.

This week, I want to start a conversation about one of the more unusual organizations in

Japanese history, one with a rather odd history all its own. It's sort of a religious organization,

arguably a new religion all its own, though one with roots in something much older. It's also

vocal in the cultural sphere, and for a time even wielded its own political party,

one of the more influential minor parties in Japanese politics.

I refer, of course, to Soka Gakai, the Value Creation Society.

Now, Soka Gakka is fascinating despite its relatively small membership, about 6 million people

in Japan, a further 6 million outside the country.

But before we can get into all of that, we have to talk a bit about their history, which,

despite the fact that the group is often labeled as a new religion, goes back pretty far.

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