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.

Frederik Cryns 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, Cryns appears regularly on Japanese television history programs and supervised the historical aspects of the new television series Shōgun.