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This week, I'm going to recommend Plato's Republic from the Great Courses series by Dr. David Roochnick.

I'm actually teaching Republic for the first time on my own, and while I love the text, it's definitely a complicated one.

I actually use this course to help me prep for the teaching so I can vouch that it's a really interesting and well-done

series of lectures that help explain one of the most important philosophical texts in the Greek tradition.

Go to audible trial.com slash Japan to claim your copy. Hello and welcome to the history of Japan podcast, episode 359, A Nation in a Nation, Part 3.

I think it's fair to say that by the 1960s, Soka Gakai was an established part of the Japanese

cultural scene, something illustrated well by the fact that among the attendees for Toto

Jose's funeral in 1958 was none other than the sitting prime minister,

Kishinobuske. And if you're wondering, no, they did not end up throwing Toda into the sea.

The cachet of the religion was impressive, particularly given that just 15 years earlier,

its leadership was all languishing in prison.

To be fair, it was not the only new religion to experience big growth after the war, many

of them did.

However, Soka Gakai's growth vastly outpaced that of the other new religions.

To take one example, a competing new religion called Tenrikio, which is actually older,

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