The first book to treat the Dutch East India Company in Japan as something more than just a commercial organization, this study focuses on the company's clashes with Tokugawa Japan over diplomacy, violence, and sovereignty. The Dutch were forced to refashion themselves again and again—from subjects to vassals, pirates to merchants, and within the confines of these conflicts, the terms of the relationship between the company and the shogun took shape.
The Company and the Shogun presents a new perspective on one of the most important and long-lasting relationships to develop between an Asian state and a European overseas enterprise. It tells the story of Dutch East India Company's clashes with Tokugawa Japan over diplomacy, violence, and sovereignty. In each encounter, the Dutch were forced to retreat, abandon their claims to sovereign powers, and refashion themselves—from subjects of a fictive king to loyal vassals of the shogun, from aggressive pirates to meek merchants, and from insistent defenders of colonial sovereignty to legal subjects of the Tokugawa state. Within these conflicts, the terms of the relationship between the company and the shogun took shape and were subsequently set in their permanent form.