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. From the Bard obsession shared by Abraham Lincoln and his assassin to the controversial 2017 staging of Julius Caesar in Central Park, James Shapiro traces the unparalleled role of Shakespeare's 400-year-old tragedies and comedies, revealing why no writer has been more embraced, more weaponized, or has shed more light on the hot-button issues in our history.