James Clavell’s “Shōgun” is a notoriously long book. The first edition in 1975 ran well over a thousand pages and yet was somehow still a truly massive, culture-shifting literary hit, selling millions of copies.
Not only did it start a successful series of books for the author known as The Asian Saga, but it really helped define the prestige network TV mini-series.
In 1980, a nine-hour mini-series captivated viewers on NBC over five nights, becoming the highest-rated program in the history of the network and second only to ABC’s “Roots” on any network.
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