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This week, I'm going to break with the Japan theme and recommend the War that Ended Peace,

The Road to 1914, by Margaret Macmillan.

It is, of course, the 100-year anniversary of the first year of World War I,

and to my mind, there's no one out there who does a better job of explaining the origins of the Great War that has shaped everything since it broke out.

Go to audiblechild.com slash Japan to claim your copy.

...dochrist. Hello and welcome to the History of Japan podcast.

Episode 74, Taira No Masakado.

I've been saving this story for a little while now.

It's just about Halloween in the West, and I figured it would be the perfect time for a bit of a ghost story.

This story revolves around a member of a bouquet, or warrior house, in the 900s AD.

His name was Tyra no Masakato, and he, like most of Japan's rising warrior class, was the distant descendant of an emperor who had removed some of his children from the imperial line in order to head

off some succession disputes. We're not actually sure when Masacado was born. The few chronicles that are out there describing his life don't give a date.

Nor do we know much about his early life.

The first time he pops up in history, he was already somewhere in his teens.

What we do know is that his branch of the Tyra family was based in the Kanto region,

the same part of Japan that now houses

...