A review by rsinclair6536
Shakespeare in a Divided America: What His Plays Tell Us about Our Past and Future by James Shapiro

5.0

Shapiro lets us know that over a century ago novelist Willa Cather insisted: “Shakespeare belongs to two nations now.” She was referring to America’s continuing fascination with his works, and Shapiro demonstrates that north and south, left and right, rich and poor, old and young have found his plays to be a source of inspiration and agitation from colonial times to today. This is more an anecdotal history of American theater than an analysis of text, and I found it very entertaining. Shakespeare’s plays have been a source of riots, demonstrations, conspiracies, Hollywood manipulation, and presidential shape shifting as the ideas in them highlight our differences. It's all told here in fabulous detail. Sometimes Shapiro is a little over the top with claims about his subject’s significance, but one should expect theatrics here.