Hello and welcome to the History of Japan podcast. Episode 30.

A review of Shulbun.

One of the things I've always wanted to do since I decided to start this project was to talk about some of the media that's out there depicting Japanese history.

What stories are being used as the basis for the project, how accurate the interpretation is,

and whether or not,

in my humble opinion, those movies, games, books, what have you, are worth your time.

Of course, if I'm going to do that, there's only one sensible place to start.

The epic novel Shogun by James Clavel.

The novel introduced the Baby Boom Generation to Japan as it existed, theoretically, in the time of the samurai.

It is far and away the most influential historical fiction piece ever set in Japan, and remains a bestseller to this day.

It even spawned its own TV miniseries in 1980.

The book retains a great deal of influence up to this day.

For example, a survey of entrance into an introductory course on Japanese civilization done at Columbia University revealed that around 30 to 50% of the class, on average, had read the book

before even arriving in the classroom.

So, let's talk about Shogun.

Of course, you can't really talk about Shogun without first talking about James

Clavel. So, who was he? Well, James Clavel was born in Australia in 1924, the son of a

Royal Navy officer stationed there for duty. Being from a military

family, he joined his Majesty's artillery in 1940 after finishing secondary school at the tender age of

16. He was dispatched to Malaya upon the outbreak of World War II, where he served with the British

forces attempting to halt the Japanese advance into Southeast Asia.

However, he was wounded and captured by the Japanese and spent the remainder of the war in various prisoner of war camps,

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