Income inequality has been a world-wide concern in recent years. But it isn’t anything new. Unequal distribution of wealth has appeared across history, and we can look toward these periods for lessons. For example, the Italian Renaissance was funded by what we would today call the 1%. Families like the Medici lavished their wealth on…
Category: History
Yakuza, A Brief History
The yakuza need no introduction. The organized crime groups appear throughout Japanese and American films. Next to the Italian mafia, they are the most famous crime group. The name yakuza comes from a losing hand in a traditional Japanese card game. Ya ku sa — eight, nine, three. The group began in the Tokugawa period,…