Best Selling Books by James Shapiro

Shakespeare scholar James Shapiro explains when and why so many people began to question whether Shakespeare wrote his plays.

One of the New York Times 10 Best Books of the Year • A National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist • A New York Times Notable Book A timely exploration of what Shakespeare’s plays reveal about our divided land. “In this sprightly and enthralling book . . . Shapiro amply demonstrates [that] for Americans the politics of Shakespeare are not confined to the public realm, but have enormous relevance in the sphere of private life.” —The Guardian (London) The plays of William Shakespeare are rare common ground in the United States. For well over two centuries, Americans of all stripes—presidents and activists, soldiers and writers, conservatives and liberals alike—have turned to Shakespeare’s works to explore the nation’s fault lines. In a narrative arching from Revolutionary times to the present day, leading scholar James Shapiro traces the unparalleled role of Shakespeare’s four-hundred-year-old tragedies and comedies in illuminating the many concerns on which American identity has turned. From Abraham Lincoln’s and his assassin, John Wilkes Booth’s, competing Shakespeare obsessions to the 2017 controversy over the staging of Julius Caesar in Central Park, in which a Trump-like leader is assassinated, Shakespeare in a Divided America reveals how no writer has been more embraced, more weaponized, or has shed more light on the hot-button issues in our history.

First published in 1996, James Shapiro''s pathbreaking analysis of the portrayal of Jews in Elizabethan England challenged readers to recognize the significance of Jewish questions in Shakespeare''s day. From accounts of Christians masquerading as Jews to fantasies of settling foreign Jews in Ireland, Shapiro''s work delves deeply into the cultural insecurities of Elizabethans while illuminating Shakespeare''s portrayal of Shylock in The Merchant of Venice. In a new preface, Shapiro reflects upon what he has learned about intolerance since the first publication of Shakespeare and the Jews.

Winner of the Baillie Gifford Prize’s 25th Anniversary Winner of Winners award What accounts for Shakespeare’s transformation from talented poet and playwright to one of the greatest writers who ever lived? In this gripping account, James Shapiro sets out to answer this question, "succeed[ing] where others have fallen short." (Boston Globe) 1599 was an epochal year for Shakespeare and England. During that year, Shakespeare wrote four of his most famous plays: Henry the Fifth, Julius Caesar, As You Like It, and, most remarkably, Hamlet; Elizabethans sent off an army to crush an Irish rebellion, weathered an Armada threat from Spain, gambled on a fledgling East India Company, and waited to see who would succeed their aging and childless queen. James Shapiro illuminates both Shakespeare’s staggering achievement and what Elizabethans experienced in the course of 1599, bringing together the news and the intrigue of the times with a wonderful evocation of how Shakespeare worked as an actor, businessman, and playwright. The result is an exceptionally immediate and gripping account of an inspiring moment in history.

A brilliant and daring account of a culture war over the place of theater in American democracy in the 1930s, one that anticipates our current divide, by the acclaimed Shakespeare scholar James Shapiro From 1935 to 1939, the Federal Theatre Project staged over a thousand productions in 29 states that were seen by thirty million (or nearly one in four) Americans, two thirds of whom had never seen a play before. At its helm was an unassuming theater professor, Hallie Flanagan. It employed, at its peak, over twelve thousand struggling artists, some of whom, like Orson Welles and Arthur Miller, would soon be famous, but most of whom were just ordinary people eager to work again at their craft. It was the product of a moment when the arts, no less than industry and agriculture, were thought to be vital to the health of the republic, bringing Shakespeare to the public, alongside modern plays that confronted the pressing issues of the day—from slum housing and public health to racism and the rising threat of fascism. The Playbook takes us through some of its most remarkable productions, including a groundbreaking Black production of Macbeth in Harlem and an adaptation of Sinclair Lewis’s anti-fascist novel It Can’t Happen Here that opened simultaneously in 18 cities, underscoring the Federal Theatre’s incredible range and vitality. But this once thriving Works Progress Administration relief program did not survive and has left little trace. For the Federal Theatre was the first New Deal project to be attacked and ended on the grounds that it promoted “un-American” activity, sowing the seeds not only for the McCarthyism of the 1950s but also for our own era of merciless polarization. It was targeted by the first House un-American Affairs Committee, and its demise was a turning point in American cultural life—for, as Shapiro brilliantly argues, “the health of democracy and theater, twin born in ancient Greece, have always been mutually dependent.” A defining legacy of this culture war was how the strategies used to undermine and ultimately destroy the Federal Theatre were assembled by a charismatic and cunning congressman from East Texas, the now largely forgotten Martin Dies, who in doing so pioneered the right-wing political playbook now so prevalent that it seems eternal.

The Bavarian village of Oberammergau has staged the trial, crucifixion, and resurrection of Christ nearly every decade since 1634. Each production of the Passion Play attracts hundreds of thousands, many drawn by the spiritual benefits it promises. Yet Hitler called it a convincing portrayal of the menace of Jewry, and in 1970 a group of international luminaries boycotted the play for its anti-Semitism. As the production for the year 2000 drew near, James Shapiro was there to document the newest wave of obstacles that faced the determined Bavarian villagers. Erudite and judicious, Oberammergau is a fascinating and important look at the unpredictable and sometimes tragic relationship between art and society, belief and tolerance, religion and politics.

Preeminent Shakespeare scholar James Shapiro, author of Shakespeare in a Divided America, shows how the tumultuous events in 1606 influenced three of Shakespeare’s greatest tragedies written that year—King Lear, Macbeth, and Antony and Cleopatra. “The Year of Lear is irresistible—a banquet of wisdom” (The New York Times Book Review). In the years leading up to 1606, Shakespeare’s great productivity had ebbed. But that year, at age forty-two, he found his footing again, finishing a play he had begun the previous autumn—King Lear—then writing two other great tragedies, Macbeth and Antony and Cleopatra. It was a memorable year in England as well—a terrorist plot conceived by a small group of Catholic gentry had been uncovered at the last hour. The foiled Gunpowder Plot would have blown up the king and royal family along with the nation’s political and religious leadership. The aborted plot renewed anti-Catholic sentiment and laid bare divisions in the kingdom. It was against this background that Shakespeare finished Lear, a play about a divided kingdom, then wrote a tragedy that turned on the murder of a Scottish king, Macbeth. He ended this astonishing year with a third masterpiece no less steeped in current events and concerns: Antony and Cleopatra. “Exciting and sometimes revelatory, in The Year of Lear, James Shapiro takes a closer look at the political and social turmoil that contributed to the creation of three supreme masterpieces” (The Washington Post). He places them in the context of their times, while also allowing us greater insight into how Shakespeare was personally touched by such events as a terrible outbreak of plague and growing religious divisions. “His great gift is to make the plays seem at once more comprehensible and more staggering” (The New York Review of Books). For anyone interested in Shakespeare, this is an indispensable book.

Winner of the Baillie Gifford Prize, and shortlisted for the Baillie Gifford ''Winner of Winners'' award in 2023 How did Shakespeare go from being a talented poet and playwright to become one of the greatest writers who ever lived? In this one exhilarating year we follow what he reads and writes, what he saw and who he worked with as he invests in the new Globe theatre and creates four of his most famous plays - Henry V, Julius Caesar, As You Like It, and, most remarkably, Hamlet. This book brings the news, intrigue and flavour of the times together with wonderful detail about how Shakespeare worked as an actor, businessman and playwright, to create an exceptionally immediate and gripping account of an inspiring moment in history.

1606: William Shakespeare and the Year of Lear traces Shakespeare''s life and times from the autumn of 1605, when he took an old and anonymous Elizabethan play, The Chronicle History of King Leir, and transformed it into his most searing tragedy, King Lear. 1606 proved to be an especially grim year for England, which witnessed the bloody aftermath of the Gunpowder Plot, divisions over the Union of England and Scotland, and an outbreak of plague. But it turned out to be an exceptional one for Shakespeare, unrivalled at identifying the fault-lines of his cultural moment, who before the year was out went on to complete two other great Jacobean tragedies that spoke directly to these fraught times: Macbeth and Antony and Cleopatra. Following the biographical style of 1599, a way of thinking and writing that Shapiro has made his own, 1606: William Shakespeare and the Year of Lear promises to be one of the most significant and accessible works on Shakespeare in the decade to come.

This ebook is an excerpt from Contested Will by James Shapiro, and originally appeared as the last section titled "Shakespeare." In this chapter, Shapiro succintly and eloquently makes the case for why no one else but Shakespeare could have written Shakespeare''s plays.

The Columbia Anthology of British Poetry brings together the most remarkable verse written in the British Isles over the course of the past twelve centuries, offering the greatest diversity of poetic voices in any anthology of its kind. From Shakespeare''s memorable sonnets to Keats''s haunting odes to T.S. Eliot''s mediations on the conditions of modern life, the collection contains many of the best-loved treasures of British poetry. Longer and much-celebrated poems that rarely find their way into anthologies-including Pope''s "Rape of the Lock" and Coleridge''s "Rime of the Ancient Mariner"-claim a place in this collection. Queen Elizabeth I, Anne Killigrew, Aphra Behn, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and Felicia Hemans are among dozens of women writers renowned in their own day and now restored to their rightful prominence. Scottish, Welsh, and Irish poets often excluded from anthologies of British poetry are here as well, including such extraordinary voices as Lady Grisell Baillie, Robert Burns, Hugh MacDiarmid, and Seamus Heaney. The finest contemporary poets are fully represented also, from Thom Gunn to Eavan Boland. The result is an amazingly rich and wide-ranging conversation among British poets that transcends the boundaries of time and place. Carl Woodring and James Shapiro, the team scholars who edited The Columbia History of British Poetry, have written incisive introductions to the careers of the poets, making this the most accessible and comprehensive anthology of British verse in print. Covering the new and the ancient, the classic and the rediscovered, this generous volume reimagines the horizons of British poetry.

Mobile Genetic Elements introduces the nonspecialist to the biology and genetics of mobile elements. It attempts to make the biochemistry of DNA rearrangements more accessible to embryologists and evolutionists, and to illuminate the related developmental cycles to the biochemist. The book also shows how natural the activity of mobile elements can be in diverse biological situations. The chapters describe several well-studied cases in which genetic determinants—often identified as specific nucleic acid sequences—repeatedly change their positions within or between cellular genomes. Because their genomic positions are not fixed, these determinants may conveniently be classed together under the rubric of mobile genetic elements. The book begins with a discussion of maize controlling elements. This is followed by separate chapters on the bacteriophages ? and Mu; nonviral mobile elements in bacteria; transposable Ty elements in brewer''s yeast; Drosophila transposable element; and hybrid dysgenesis. Subsequent chapters cover vertebrate retroviruses; Agrobacterium oncogenesis in plants; flagellar phase variation in Salmonella; yeast mating type; and surface antigenic variation in trypanosomes.

Nova edição da premiada biografia de William Shakespeare em comemoração ao seu aniversário de 460 anos O ano de 1599 foi crucial para o desenvolvimento artístico de Shakespeare, assim como as reviravoltas históricas que ocorreram nesse período. Os elisabetanos passavam por um momento delicado de sua história. Já em idade avançada, a rainha Elizabeth I não transmitia segurança para seu povo: não tinha um herdeiro direto e a rebelião irlandesa não podia ser contida. O próprio conde de Essex, que gozava de grande simpatia da rainha, era inefeciente na batalha e sua lealdade começava a ser contestada. A Armada Espanhola se aproximava de Londres e traidores e espiões da Scotland Yard estavam por toda a parte. A insegurança da rainha transformou-se em censura: qualquer um que a amaldissesse, ainda que minimamente, poderia ser condenado à prisão. Este livro é tanto sobre o que Shakespeare realizou quanto sobre o que os elisabetanos vivenciaram nesse ano, duas coisas que são quase inextrincáveis: é tão impossível falarmos sobre as peças de Shakespeare sem considerar sua época quanto compreender o que aquela sociedade vivenciou sem dispormos das perspectivas proporcionadas pelo grandioso trabalho de dramaturgo.

No es posible hablar de las obras shakespearianas con independencia de su época, como tampoco lo es entender lo que experimentó la sociedad en la que vivió Shakespeare sin la ayuda de las concepciones de éste. en 1599 Shakespeare escribió cuatro de sus obras más famosas (Enrique V, Julio César, Como gustéis y Hamlet), los isabelinos enviaron al ejército a aplastar una rebelión irlandesa, resistieron una amenaza naval española y apostaron por una joven Compañía de las Indias Orientales mientras esperaban a ver quién sucedía a la reina Isabel y acudían en masa a los teatros de Londres, entre ellos el Globo, recientemente construido. En este documentado ensayo, James Shapiro ilustra tanto los asombrosos logros de Shakespeare como las vivencias de los isabelinos en el transcurso del año 1599, combinando los acontecimientos políticos y las intrigas de la época con una magnífica evocación de la forma de trabajar de Shakespeare como actor, dramaturgo y hombre de negocios.

This inspirational book is the captivating true chronicle of author Jim Shapiro''s epic 80-day, 3,026-mile run across America in the summer of 1980. Balancing vivid descriptions of the ever-changing physical landscape and candid explorations of his own mental state, Shapiro offers an essential volume in the library of classic American travelogues.

El año de Lear ofrece un íntimo retrato de uno de los momentos más inspirados en la carrera de William Shakespeare, un año excepcional en el que terminó de escribir "El rey Lear" y emprendió la escritura de otras dos grandes tragedias: "Macbeth" y "Antonio y Cleopatra". El año 1606 fue extraordinariamente creativo para Shakespeare, pero terrible para Inglaterra. Las tragedias que Shakespeare escribió ese año fueron producidas bajo la sombra de la peste y del fallido complot para asesinar al rey Jacobo I y a los dirigentes políticos y religiosos de la nación. Como muestra James Shapiro, las tres obras maestras de Shakespeare están profundamente determinadas por esa época. En Inglaterra, gobernada por un rey escocés, existían serias divisiones políticas y religiosas. "El rey Lear" es una obra que trata sobre "la división de los reinos", mientras que el acontecimiento crucial en "Macbeth" es el asesinato de un rey escocés. Shakespeare, en profunda sintonía con los conflictos culturales de su época, los encaja en el tejido de sus tragedias.

Runner James Shapiro begins his classic Ultramarathon with an account of running with 16 other men for 24 hours around a 400-meter track. This long-distance runner''s bible gives the facts and the spirit behind the races and the men.

A somewhat introspective, possibly even a personal account, awaits the reader in James Shapiro''s Sunrise over Belet and one wonders if the author, who shares his name with the principal character in the book, are one and the same, and that James Shapiro is perhaps writing from the heart. Sunrise over Belet recounts one man''s struggle from boyhood through to adulthood with the demon voices in his head. A troubled school life gives rise to academic success and then a career in the city, neither of which assuages the increasingly loud noises in James'' head and which dog James at every turn. The death of a friend propels James rapidly into a new life in another country and so his voyage of self-discovery continues. Sunrise over Belet reflects the struggles of many people, were they to admit it; the self-doubt we all experience and the increasing wonder of the meaning of life as we grow up and grow older. Sunrise over Belet is a fascinating insight into one of the many aspects of the human condition with a brilliantly managed conclusion.

This anthology contains 21 of my poems. There are no introductions and no explanations; no planned structures and no deliberate rhymes; no story and no moral. All that there is are the words that I have bled, all of which you will find meaning in; some of which you will find kinship in; and a few of which you might even find comfort in.

The Guide to Huge Cash Awards, Lifetime Payments & Maximum Money. By Jim "The Hammer" Shapiro. Learn how to wring Maximum Money Awards out of: Smug Insurance Companies; Rich, Greedy Corporations; Evil Landlords; and Crooked Stock Brokers.

A lavishly detailed portrait of a year in the life of the bard traces his career in 1599, which marked the building of the Globe Theater, the English invasion of Ireland, and the creation of the plays, Henry V, Julius Caesar, As You Like It, and Hamlet. (Biography & Autobiography)

''Where do I begin?Her name was Brandi. I cannot tell you her surname. She lived close to New York; her exact town I must not name. She was a singer of a certain genre and played a certain instrument. Can I say the instrument? Maybe. It was a guitar.My name is James, but I think I''ll call myself Jacob.This is just a story.''Regarded as James Shapiro''s most daring work yet, both direct and disturbing, ''Brandi'' crosses the bridge between fiction and reality and is a story that you will never be able to forget.