However, Omi, who is quickly proving himself as a clever adviser, convinces Yabu to spare them to learn more about European ways. Yabu sentences Blackthorne and his crew to death. The Japanese, who know only the Catholic version of Christianity, are shocked by the gesture. Losing the trial, Blackthorne attacks the Jesuit, rips off his crucifix, and stamps it into the dust to show the daimyō that the priest is his enemy. Yabu puts Blackthorne and his crew on trial as pirates, using a Jesuit priest to interpret for Blackthorne. Blackthorne and the few survivors of his crew are taken captive by local samurai, Kasigi Omi, until his daimyō (feudal lord) and uncle, Kasigi Yabu, arrives. England (and Holland) seek to disrupt Portuguese (and Catholic) relations with Japan and establish ties of their own through trade and military alliances.Įrasmus is blown ashore on the Japanese coast at the village of Anjiro during a storm.

John Blackthorne, an English pilot, serving on the Dutch warship Erasmus, is the first English pilot to reach Japan. Guns and Europe's modern military capabilities are still a novelty and despised as a threat to Japan's traditional Samurai warrior culture. But Japanese society is insular and xenophobic. Portugal, with its vast sea power, and the Catholic Church mainly through the Order of the Jesuits, have gained a foothold in Japan and seek to extend their power. The heir to the Taiko (Regent) is too young to rule, and the most powerful five overlords of the land hold power as a Council of Regents. Toranaga's rise to the shogunate is seen through the eyes of the English sailor John Blackthorne, called Anjin ('Pilot') by the Japanese, whose fictional heroics are loosely based on the historical exploits of William Adams.įeudal Japan in 1600 is in a precarious peace. Beginning in feudal Japan some months before the critical Battle of Sekigahara in 1600, Shōgun gives an account of the rise of the daimyō 'Toranaga' (based upon the actual Tokugawa Ieyasu). A major best-seller, by 1990 the book had sold 15 million copies worldwide.

It is the first novel (by internal chronology) of the author's Asian Saga.

1975 'First Edition' stated on copyright page Atheneum publishers, New York single volume hardbound book in good condition with unmarked pages except for original owners signature in front boards are good/fair with minor soiling spine good with minor wrinkling (pic) dust jacket fair with edge tears (pic).

Shōgun by james clavell