The Curious Tale of William Adams, the Samurai Sailor
In the early 1980s a novel by James Clavell called ‘Shogun’ gripped the Western World. The book sold in millions, and awoke considerable interest in the history of feudal Japan. It was soon turned into a very successful TV series starring Richard Chamberlain as a Tudor sea pilot called John Blackthorne. The story tells how Blackthorne was wrecked on the Japanese coast in 1600, just when that country was entering a violent power struggle between rival clans of Samurai, battlin
