The Shogun's Silver Telescope
God, Art, and Money in the English Quest for Japan, 1600-1625
Timon Screech
Reviews and Awards
"The Shogun's Silver Telescope opens up new avenues of research" - Bhavani Raman, Journal of Interdisciplinary History
"The Shogun's Silver Telescope... is a rip-roaring, fact-packed ride back in time to the world of Tokugawa Ieyasu and King James I—an era when the globe was shrinking at a sails' pace... Screech's solid scholarship and light writing style introduces this world in great detail, but, unlike many academic books, keeps the narrative going at the pace of a novel. He somehow manages to weave in stories as varied as England's first shopping emporia, erotica, the genealogies of the great and good of both Japan and England, Indian art and the abductions and acculturising of unsuspecting Africans with espionage, conflict and adventure on the high seas. This is a highly recommended read for anyone with any interest whatsoever in Japanese or English history." - Thomas Lockley, Acumen, The magazine of the British Chamber of Commerce in Japan