A successful producer, director, screenwriter, and novelist, James du Maresq Clavell was also a war hero, carpenter, and political conservative who conversed with Roger Moore and corresponded with William F. Buckley. Clavell also contributed to arts and letters a bridge of understanding between the West and the East. Novels like Shogun enabled the West to gain an understanding and respect for Japan at a time when Japan was emerging as an economic world power.

Clavell, born on August 10, 1924, in Sidney, Australia, was the son of British colonists Richard Charles and Eileen (Collis) Clavel!. Clavell grew up hearing sea stories from his father and grandfather, both careerists in the Royal British Navy. They instilled in him a sense of pride and obligation for being British. Consequently, Clavell described himself as a "half-Irish Englishman with Scots overtones," not an Australian. The family moved to different Navy stations, such...