THE DUTCH IN JAPAN.

Paul Doolan describes the unique 400-year-long trading; intellectual and artistic contacts between the Dutch and the Japanese.

MANY OF US have read James Clavell's Shogun (1975), the fictional account of the adventures of the crew of the Dutch ship De Liefde, or have seen the television series starring Richard Chamberlain. April 2000 marks the 400th anniversary of the Liefde's arrival in Japan in 1600, an event which began four centuries of Japanese-Dutch relations.

The Portuguese had been the first Europeans to settle in Japan in the mid-sixteenth century, seeking both ...

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