Christin Bohnke

Onna-Bugeisha, the Female Samurai Warriors of Feudal Japan

In 1868 a group of female samurai took part in the fierce Battle of Aizu for the very soul of Japan.

The Actor Arashi Wakano as a wakashu in a kappa (raincoat)

The Disappearance of Japan’s “Third Gender”

Gender roles in Edo Japan recognized an in-between position for young men, called Wakashu, that was erased as Japan westernized.

Editors' Picks

Arts & Culture

The Bossa Nova Craze

In the early 1960s, bossa nova was hugely popular in the US thanks to its reinvention as a social dance and its connections with upper-class culture.

Education & Society

Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God: Annotated

Jonathan Edwards’s sermon reflects the complicated religious culture of eighteenth-century America, influenced not just by Calvinism, but Newtonian physics as well.

Politics & History

Guns in America: Foundations and Key Concepts

This non-exhaustive list of readings on the role of guns in US history and society introduces the field as a subject of scholarly inquiry.

Politics & History

How Stovemakers Helped Invent Modern Marketing

Most people in the United States have a stove in their kitchen. But how did this “must-have” come to be?

Politics & History

The Swedish-American Coffee Tradition

For many Swedish immigrants to the United States, coffee was a key to hospitality and a way to signal prosperity.

Onna-Bugeisha, the Female Samurai Warriors of Feudal Japan

The Disappearance of Japan’s “Third Gender”

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