Samurai William

Samurai William PDF Author: Giles Milton
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN: 0374706239
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 370

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Book Description
An eye-opening account of the first encounter between England and Japan, by the acclaimed author of Nathaniel's Nutmeg In 1611, the merchants of London's East India Company received a mysterious letter from Japan, written several years previously by a marooned English mariner named William Adams. Foreigners had been denied access to Japan for centuries, yet Adams had been living in this unknown land for years. He had risen to the highest levels in the ruling shogun's court, taken a Japanese name, and was now offering his services as adviser and interpreter. Seven adventurers were sent to Japan with orders to find and befriend Adams, in the belief that he held the key to exploiting the opulent riches of this forbidden land. Their arrival was to prove a momentous event in the history of Japan and the shogun suddenly found himself facing a stark choice: to expel the foreigners and continue with his policy of isolation, or to open his country to the world. For more than a decade the English, helped by Adams, were to attempt trade with the shogun, but confounded by a culture so different from their own, and hounded by scheming Jesuit monks and fearsome Dutch assassins, they found themselves in a desperate battle for their lives. Samurai William is the fascinating story of a clash of two cultures, and of the enormous impact one Westerner had on the opening of the East.

Samurai William

Samurai William PDF Author: Giles Milton
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN: 0374706239
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 370

Get Book Here

Book Description
An eye-opening account of the first encounter between England and Japan, by the acclaimed author of Nathaniel's Nutmeg In 1611, the merchants of London's East India Company received a mysterious letter from Japan, written several years previously by a marooned English mariner named William Adams. Foreigners had been denied access to Japan for centuries, yet Adams had been living in this unknown land for years. He had risen to the highest levels in the ruling shogun's court, taken a Japanese name, and was now offering his services as adviser and interpreter. Seven adventurers were sent to Japan with orders to find and befriend Adams, in the belief that he held the key to exploiting the opulent riches of this forbidden land. Their arrival was to prove a momentous event in the history of Japan and the shogun suddenly found himself facing a stark choice: to expel the foreigners and continue with his policy of isolation, or to open his country to the world. For more than a decade the English, helped by Adams, were to attempt trade with the shogun, but confounded by a culture so different from their own, and hounded by scheming Jesuit monks and fearsome Dutch assassins, they found themselves in a desperate battle for their lives. Samurai William is the fascinating story of a clash of two cultures, and of the enormous impact one Westerner had on the opening of the East.

Anjin

Anjin PDF Author: Hiromi T. Rogers
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781898823223
Category : British
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
The year is 1600. It is April and Japan's iconic cherry trees are in full flower. A battered ship drifts on the tide into Usuki Bay in southern Japan. On board, barely able to stand, are twenty-three Dutchmen and one Englishman, the remnants of a fleet of five ships and 500 men that had set out from Rotterdam in 1598. The Englishman was William Adams, later to be known as Anjin Miura by the Japanese, whose subsequent transformation from wretched prisoner to one of the Shogun's closest advisers is the centrepiece of this book. As a native of Japan, and a scholar of seventeenth-century Japanese history, the author delves deep into the cultural context facing Adams in what is one of the great examples of assimilation into the highest reaches of a foreign culture. Her access to Japanese sources, including contemporary accounts - some not previously seen by Western scholars researching the subject - offers us a fuller understanding of the life lived by William Adams as a high-ranking samurai and his grandstand view of the collision of cultures that led to Japan's self-imposed isolation, lasting over two centuries. This is a highly readable account of Adams' voyage to and twenty years in Japan and that is supported by detailed observations of Japanese culture and society at this time. New light is shed on Adams' relations with the Dutch and his countrymen, including the disastrous relationship with Captain John Saris, the key role likely to have been played by the munitions, including cannon, removed from Adams' ship De Liefde in the great battle of Sekigahara (September 1600), the shipbuilding skills that enabled Japan to advance its international maritime ambitions, as well as the scientific and technical support Adams was able to provide in the refining process of Japan's gold and silver.

Servant of the Shogun

Servant of the Shogun PDF Author: Richard Tames
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : British
Languages : en
Pages :

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Against Extinction

Against Extinction PDF Author: William Mark Adams
Publisher: Earthscan
ISBN: 1849770417
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 322

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Book Description
First Published in 2004. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Needle-Watcher

Needle-Watcher PDF Author: Richard Blaker
Publisher: Tuttle Publishing
ISBN: 1462904092
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 514

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Book Description
This fascinating novel reconstructs the story of Will Adams, a native of Gillingham, in Kent, England, and his voyage to Japan in the seventeenth century. Adams' knowledge of seafaring vessels at the time causes him to be taken into the favor of the shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu and,in time,to become recognized as the founder of the Japanese navy. Adams was one of the most picturesque and daring of Britain's maritime traders, and this depiction of him as the first Englishman to settle in what was then a hostile country is written not only with distinction but also with an imaginative grasp that takes it right out of the class of the ordinary historical novel. It is an epic tale of strange adventures, and it creates an atmosphere of rare and haunting quality. In its understanding of the Japanese mind it is hardly less than remarkable. Will Adams died in Japan in the spring of 1620 and is buried at Yokosuka. Every year a ceremony is still held to commemorate the anniversary of his death. There is also a memorial to him at Ito,in Shizuoka Prefecture, as well as one at his birthplace in England.

The Log-book of William Adams, 1614-19

The Log-book of William Adams, 1614-19 PDF Author: William Adams
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : British
Languages : en
Pages : 172

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Adams The Pilot

Adams The Pilot PDF Author: William Corr
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136638113
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 258

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Book Description
This book charts the life and times of Captain William Adams who lived in the period of 1564 to 1620. Adam himself wrote little; his letters and logs, while vivid and valuable, would convey too little about the eventful years between 1600 and 1620 on their own. Other sources, such as thevarious writings of other Europeans in Japan, complete the tale. Including mentions of significant historical events, for example in 1588 William Adams commands a supply ship, the ‘Richard Dygylde’, at the time of Philip II of Spain's attempted invasion of England, the Enterprise of England (the Spanish Armada) and in 1600 The first Dutch ship (Liefde) arrives in Japan. William Adams is taken before Tokugawa Leyasu and questioned;he explains that Holland and England are at war with Spain and Portugal. Leyasu declines the Portuguese suggestion that he execute the Liefde's crew.

The Maker of Modern Japan

The Maker of Modern Japan PDF Author: A L Sadler
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136924698
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 399

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Book Description
Tokugawa Ieyasu founded a dynasty of rulers, organized a system of government and set in train the re-orientation of the religion of Japan so that he would take the premier place in it. Calm, capable and entirely fearless, Ieyasu deliberately brought the opposition to a head and crushed in a decisive battle, after which he made himself Shogun, despite not being from the Minamoto clan. He organized the Japanese legal and educational systems and encouraged trade with Europe (playing off the Protestant powers of Holland and England against Catholic Spain and Portugal). This book remains one of the few volumes on Tokugawa Ieyasu which draws on more material from Japanese sources than quotations from the European documents from his era and is therefore much more accurate and thorough in its examination of the life and legacy of one of the greatest Shoguns.

Brigham's Destroying Angel

Brigham's Destroying Angel PDF Author: William Adams Hickman
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 242

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A Genealogical History of Robert Adams, of Newbury, Mass

A Genealogical History of Robert Adams, of Newbury, Mass PDF Author: Andrew Napoleon Adams
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 714

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Book Description