Frederik Cryns In the Service of the Shogun review, recensie en informatie boek en biografie met ware verhaal van William Adams. Op 1 augustus 2025 verschijnt bij Reaktion Books het boek van de Vlaamse historicus, Japankenner hoogleraar Japanse geschiedenis aan het International Research Center for Japanese Studies in Kyoto. Er is geen Nederlandse vertaling van het boek verkrijgbaar van het boek.

Frederik Cryns In the Service of the Shogun review en recensie

• “In the Service of the Shogun . . . is an exhaustively researched work based on a wide collection of primary sources, including letters written by Adams, as well as official journals, diaries and documents – among them Dutch, Spanish, Portuguese and Japanese. Students of Japanese history and culture owe Mr. Cryns a debt of gratitude for this impressive achievement.” (Wall Street Journal)
• “In the Service of the Shogun, a biography by Frederik Cryns subtitled as The Real Story of William Adams. Most readers know Adams as the inspiration for James Clavell’s novel Shogun. Adams’s experiences are such that one wonders why Clavell even bothered fictionalizing them: Five ships set off from Holland in 1598, but after 19 months at sea, only one ship remained and only nine men survived to set foot on Japanese soil. Arrested as pirates and sentenced to death, Adams somehow rose to be a trusted advisor of military leader Tokugawa Ieyasu.” (Japan Times)

In the Service of the Shogun

The Real Story of William Adams

• Auteur: Frederik Cryns (België)
• Soort boek: Japanse geschiedenis
• Taal: Engesl
• Uitgever: Reaktion Books
• Verschijnt: 1 augustus 2025
• Omvang: 232 pagina’s
• Uitgave: paperback / ebook
• Prijs: £ 10,99
• Boek bestellen bij: Amazon / Bol / Libris

Flaptekst van het boek over William Adams, een Engelsman in dienst van de Shogun

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.

Frederik Cryns was born in Antwerp, Belgium. He is Professor of Japanese History at the International Research Center for Japanese Studies, Kyoto, Japan. He is the author of several bestselling books in Japanese on the early interaction of the Western world with Japan. In addition to his academic work, Frederik appears regularly on Japanese television history programmes and supervised the historical aspects of the television series Shōgun (2024).

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