James Shapiro Audio & Video

William Shakespeare is pitted against John Milton to determine the king of English literature in this streaming video debate presented by Intelligence Squared.

In the years leading up to 1606, since the death of Queen Elizabeth and the arrival in England of her successor, King James of Scotland, Shakespeare's great productivity had ebbed, and it may have seemed to some that his prolific genius was a thing of the past.

An intimate history of Shakespeare, following him through a single year that changed not only his fortunes but the course of literature.

A timely exploration of what Shakespeare's plays reveal about our divided land.

In a history writ large like the Bard himself, acclaimed author Shapiro examines the biggest controversy in literature: Who wrote William Shakespeare's plays? In the process, Shapiro considers what this debate tells us about ourselves and the way we read now.