Want to create an interactive transcript for this episode?
Podcast: New Books in Economic and Business History
Episode: Fynn Holm, "The Gods of the Sea: Whales and Coastal Communities in Northeast Japan, c.1600-2019" (Cambridge UP, 2023)
Description: Japan is often imagined as a nation with a long history of whaling. In The Gods of the Sea: Whales and Coastal Communities in Northeast Japan, c.1600-2019 (Cambridge UP, 2023), Fynn Holm argues that for centuries some regions in early modern Japan did not engage in whaling. In fact, they were actively opposed to it, even resorting to violence when whales were killed. Resistance against whaling was widespread especially in the Northeast among the Japanese fishermen who worshiped whales as the incarnation of Ebisu, the god of the sea. Holm argues that human interactions with whales were much more di...