In this episode, Dr. Anne Walthall repopulates the history of the Meiji Restoration with the villagers, farmers, and laborers who carried out mass movements and popular protests in the years leading up to 1868.  We discuss the agency of those commoners who were, and were not, directly involved in mass movements, bottom-up aspects of the Restoration, and Dr. Walthall's recent textbook on politics and society in the Meiji Period. (Transcript here).