This is the best book that I have read this year; and if I could rate it higher than “5”, I would. I agree 100% with the judgment of Peter Kemp, a writer for The Sunday Times (London)—“A superb book—the product of marathon scholarship, inspired insight, narrative flair, astute surmise, and searching intelligence.” It has forever enriched my understanding of and appreciation for the works for Shakespeare; and for that, I am profoundly grateful to author James Shapiro. This is so much more than I expected when I chose it as a “car book” to read aloud to my husband on long road trips—in fact, we could not wait for those. We even read it when going to the grocery store, for Pete’s sake. High praise indeed.

A masterful analysis of some of Shakespeare's most well-known works. Persuasively contradicting understandings of Shakespeare as a writer "who transcends his age" or as Samuel Coleridge said, "exactly as if of another planet," Shapiro contextualizes Henry V, Julius Caesar, As You Like It, and Hamlet in the political and literary climate of their crafting, showing how Shakespeare responded, critiqued, and embodied the sociopolitical spirit of the year 1599. Must read for those who want to better understand the nuances of William Shakespeare.

I think this is the best book on Shakespeare I have read yet in terms of the current events, and prevailing culture during Shakespeare's life.

Shakespeare didn’t conceive of his tragedy in Aristotelian terms—that is, as a tragedy of the fall of a flawed great man—but rather as a collision of deeply held and irreconcilable principles, embodied in characters who are destroyed when these principles collide.

Ten stars. The greatest book of literary criticism I have seen in years, possibly decades. dazzling erudition and an Impressionistic historiography combine for something special. I admit I wasn't expecting something this astute, this poetic. His ruminations on Henry V, Julius Caesar, As You Like It and, of course, Hamlet are both rigorous and resounding. The global stage of unrest in Ireland and the fears of another Spanish Armada haunt these pages, as they did the Bard. Shapiro sanguinely notes that all roads, lead to Rome, especially in reference to the Ides of March.

My highest recommendation.