Most visitors to Japan never leave the Tokyo–Kyoto–Osaka triangle, so they never see the places where modern Japan was actually built. In just over four decades during the Meiji Period (1868–1912), a closed feudal society reinvented itself as an industrial power, and much of it happened in Kyushu.

Join Vicki L. Beyer, a travel writer and law professor who has explored all 47 of Japan's prefectures with a special eye for where history and place intersect. Vicki will take us on a journey across the island of Kyushu on a route that threads together various aspects of Japan's incredible modernization, including energy production, transportation, manufacturing, and education. She will introduce the coal mines, shipyards, steelworks, and grand port towns of the Meiji era, from the haunting ruins of "Battleship Island" to the garden estate where one visionary lord lit the fuse of Japan's transformation.

Thursday, July 30, 2026 · 5:00–6:00 PM PDT (San Diego)

Friday, July 31, 2026 9:00–10:00 aM JST (Japan)

Live on Zoom Free · Register on Luma