PositiveBookforumThe most popular honorary American of all time is unquestionably Jesus of Nazareth. But Shakespeare scholar James Shapiro’s latest book makes a lively case for Will as the man from Galilee’s perennial runner-up among unwitting citizens of the USA. Shakespeare in a Divided America: What His Plays Tell Us About Our Past and Future blends Shapiro’s usual zest for unpacking time-capsule moments (e.g., The Year of Lear) with a newfound relish for Trump-era topicality. True, you may be tempted to groan at his fatuous subtitle—our future, really? Say it ain’t so, Weird Sisters. But he’s contrived an ingeniously structured game of historical hopscotch whose nimbleness keeps a reader turning pages without fretting overmuch about his shakier connective leaps, of which there are a few ... Shakespeare in a Divided America isolates eight revealing episodes when America’s Bardolatry has ended up refracting our national tussles with race, class, and sex, along with the ongoing turmoil of new ingredients in ye old melting pot. And let’s not forget violence ... Shapiro’s occasional missteps and overreaching don’t mar the originality of his best aperçus, arresting juxtapositions, and vivid thumbnail characterizations of yesteryear’s political and theatrical figures.
