<center> <p> 1599 was an epochal year for Shakespeare and England </p> </center> <p> Shakespeare wrote four of his most famous plays: <i>Henry the Fifth, Julius Caesar, As You Like It,</i> and, most remarkably, <i>Hamlet</i>; 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. </p> <p> 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. </p>