History on Fire
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Episode 102: The Lone Samurai, Miyamoto Musashi (Part 1)
🕑 Added 2023-10-02 17:37:50 +0000 UTCToday, you get a brand new episode one week ahead of the public release and ad-free!
“All warfare is based on deception.” Sun Tzu
Ever since I started History on Fire, one topic has been the most consistently requested by listeners. Over the years, I received hundreds of messages asking me to cover the life of Miyamoto Musashi. That time has come. Here we go.
Musashi has been the subject of one of the greatest bestsellers ever written, a novel by Eiji Yoshikawa that sold over 120 million copies. And yet, the story of his life is mixed with so many myths and legends that it’s rather difficult to separate fact from fiction. He lived across the late 1500s and early 1600s, during the waning phases of the Warring States period. By that point, after over 100 years of on and off civil war, Japan was a country suffering with PTSD. Soldiers and civilians alike had all been exposed to insane amounts of bloodshed and brutality during the Sengoku Jidai. Musashi was born in the midst of that, so it’s little surprised that his is a tale filled with intensity and violence.
In this first of two episodes, I’ll dive in to make sense of the contradictory evidence available: from his childhood marred by a terrible relationship with his father to his possible participation in the uber-famous battle of Sekigahara, from his first duel to the death at the age of 13 to his conflicts with the Yoshioka family and with Sasaki Kojiro, and much more!
Comments
History on Fire
Dan is the best! :)
Joe McMorrow
It was SO COOL to press play on History on Fire and hear Dan Carlin doing the intro! Total nerdgasm for us history podcast listeners. We love to imagine that our podcast heroes know & like each other and hang out together. I hope that’s going to be the standard intro going forward.
History on Fire
I hope you enjoy it!
Kristian Castaneda
Ive read the book of five rings and had my notion of “budo” stripped away from the Hollywood version most people know. I’m very looking forward to learning about the man and his journey
