In the Service of the Shogun: The Real Story of William Adams

Exhaustively researched. . . . Students of Japanese history and culture owe Cryns a debt of gratitude for this impressive achievement.”—Wall Street Journal • “William Adams comes alive in the revelatory In the Service of the Shogun. . . . Fans of the novel Shogun and the television series would do well to pick this one up.”—Washington Independent Review of Books From the historical advisor for the record Emmy Award–winning television series Shōgun, a gripping biography of the English ship pilot who would become one of the most influential Westerners in feudal Japan. In 1600, English helmsman William Adams washed ashore in Japan and was interrogated by Tokugawa Ieyasu, Japan’s most powerful warlord and soon-to-be shogun. Far from executing Adams as a pirate, Ieyasu made him one of his most trusted advisers. This biography traces Adams’s rise from a humble pilot to a position of immense influence in Japan’s foreign relations. It unravels the subsequent diplomatic maneuvers of the Western powers in the Shogun’s empire and Adams’s eventual downfall. The first full biography of Adams based on original Dutch, English, Spanish, Portuguese, and Japanese sources, In the Service of the Shogun includes much previously unknown information. Frederik Cryns tells the authentic story of Adams’s checkered life in its historical context, taking us on a compelling journey into Adams’s complex inner feelings and cosmopolitan heart.