SOURCE: "Reading James Clavell's Shogun," in History Today, Vol. 31, October, 1981, pp. 39-42.

An American educator and historian, Smith has written widely on Japanese history and was the editor of Learning from "Shōgun": Japanese History and Western Fantasy (1980). In the following essay, Smith relates Clavell's sources and manipulation of Japanese culture and history in Shōgun.

When confronted with an extremely popular modern novel which is based on historical themes the first instinct of the historian, naturally enough, is to ascertain the 'historicity' of the work. The models for the major characters in James Clavell's Shōgun are easy to recognise but Clavell has considerably rearranged and refashioned the events and personalities of the time about which he writes.

These changes can be summarised briefly. The model for Blackthorne, the protagonist of Shōgun, is Will Adams (1564–1620), the circumstances of whose arrival in Japan in April 1600 as pilot...