About Steven Wills

I specialize in the social, cultural, and environmental history of urban Japan in the early modern and modern periods, with a focus on fires and firefighting in Edo-Tokyo. Since 2010, I have been a member of the history department at Nebraska Wesleyan University, where I teach a variety of courses on the history of Japan, China, and East Asia. I started contributing to the New Books Network as a host of the East Asian Studies channel in 2018.

NBN Episodes hosted by Steven:

Tobias Harris, "The Iconoclast: Shinzo Abe and the New Japan" (Hurst, 2020)

November 10, 2020

The Iconoclast

Tobias Harris
Hosted by Steven Wills

Abe Shinzō is seen today through many lenses: as the longest-serving prime minister in the history of Japan; as a pragmatic leader with a consistent p…

Christopher Lupke (trans.), "A History of Taiwan Literature" (Cambria Press, 2020)

October 20, 2020

A History of Taiwan Literature

Christopher Lupke (trans.)
Hosted by Steven Wills

Ye Shitao was a Taiwanese public intellectual who rose to prominence in the second half of the twentieth century. His encyclopedic A History of Taiwan…

Chad R. Diehl, "Resurrecting Nagasaki: Reconstruction and the Formation of Atomic Narratives" (Cornell UP, 2018)

December 11, 2018

Resurrecting Nagasaki

Chad R. Diehl
Hosted by Steven Wills

The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki both play a central role in any narrative of the end of the East Asia-Pacific War in 1945, yet Hiroshima…