Shakespeare in a Divided America: What His Plays Tell Us About Our Past and Future

National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction · 2020 · Shortlist

Penguin PressMarch 10, 2020history nonfictionISBN 9780525559092

Award History

Award	Year	Status	Citation
National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction	2020	Shortlist

About This Book

James Shapiro uses key moments in Shakespeare's American performance history — including John Wilkes Booth's acting career and the 1849 Astor Place Riot — to illuminate American political and social fault lines. A provocative cultural history, shortlisted for the NBCC Award for Nonfiction.

About the Author

James ShapiroAmerican

James S. Shapiro is an American Shakespeare scholar and author. His book 1599: A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare won the Samuel Johnson Prize (now the Baillie Gifford Prize) for Non-Fiction in 2006.