In the Service of the ShogunFrederik CrynsLabel: Reaktion BooksDescription: 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 humble pilot to a position of immense influence in Japan’s foreign relations. It unravels the subsequent diplomatic manoeuvres of the Western powers in the shogun’s empire and Adams’s eventual downfall.This is the first full biography of Adams based on original Dutch English Spanish Portuguese and Japanese sources and includes much previously unknown information. Frederik Cryns tells the authentic story of Adams’s chequered life in its historical context taking us on a compelling journey into Adams’s complex inner feelings and cosmopolitan heart.
