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The Playbook
- A Story of Theater, Democracy, and the Making of a Culture War
- Narrated by: Gabra Zackman
- Length: 8 hrs and 3 mins
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Publisher's summary
A brilliant and daring account of a culture war over the place of theater in American democracy in the 1930s, one that anticipates our current divide, by the acclaimed Shakespeare scholar James Shapiro
From 1935 to 1939, the Federal Theatre Project staged over a thousand productions in 29 states that were seen by thirty million (or nearly one in four) Americans, two thirds of whom had never seen a play before. At its helm was an unassuming theater professor, Hallie Flanagan. It employed, at its peak, over twelve thousand struggling artists, some of whom, like Orson Welles and Arthur Miller, would soon be famous, but most of whom were just ordinary people eager to work again at their craft. It was the product of a moment when the arts, no less than industry and agriculture, were thought to be vital to the health of the republic, bringing Shakespeare to the public, alongside modern plays that confronted the pressing issues of the day—from slum housing and public health to racism and the rising threat of fascism.
The Playbook takes us through some of its most remarkable productions, including a groundbreaking Black production of Macbeth in Harlem and an adaptation of Sinclair Lewis’s anti-fascist novel It Can’t Happen Here that opened simultaneously in 18 cities, underscoring the Federal Theatre’s incredible range and vitality. But this once thriving Works Progress Administration relief program did not survive and has left little trace. For the Federal Theatre was the first New Deal project to be attacked and ended on the grounds that it promoted “un-American” activity, sowing the seeds not only for the McCarthyism of the 1950s but also for our own era of merciless polarization. It was targeted by the first House un-American Affairs Committee, and its demise was a turning point in American cultural life—for, as Shapiro brilliantly argues, “the health of democracy and theater, twin born in ancient Greece, have always been mutually dependent.”
A defining legacy of this culture war was how the strategies used to undermine and ultimately destroy the Federal Theatre were assembled by a charismatic and cunning congressman from East Texas, the now largely forgotten Martin Dies, who in doing so pioneered the right-wing political playbook now so prevalent that it seems eternal.
Critic reviews
“A vibrant history both of the astonishingly successful Federal Theatre Project and the culture wars that succeeded in quashing it. . . Its demise still resonates, Shapiro warns, with the Dies playbook revived by culture warriors noisily censoring the arts. Sharp history as cautionary tale.”—Kirkus
“Another captivating theater history in which politics and entertainment intersect . . . Shapiro’s exquisite backstage history also cannily reflects on present-day political implications. It’s a bravura performance.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“Shapiro points out at the beginning of his fascinating, tightly written tome that the word playbook has two meanings—a book of scripts and a set of tactics employed in a competitive activity . . . The most compelling chapters, though, concern Texas Representative Martin Dies Jr. and the playbook he followed as director of the House Committee on Un-American Activities to target and, ultimately, bring down the Federal Theatre Project and Flanagan. Shapiro notes that Dies’ destructive tactic, using well publicized public hearings to spread hearsay, rumors, and half-truths about his targets and gain lots of press, became the model for subsequent culture warriors intent on securing notoriety and silencing unwelcome voices and dissent.”—Booklist
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Overall
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Over the past two decades, postcommunist countries have witnessed a sudden shift in the electoral fortunes of their political parties: previously successful center-left parties suffered dramatic electoral defeats and disappeared from the political scene, while right-wing populist parties soared in popularity and came to power. This dynamic echoed similar processes in Western Europe and raises a question: Were these dynamics in any way connected? When Right Moves Left argues that they were.
By: Maria Snegovaya
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History in the House
- Some Remarkable Dons and the Teaching of Politics, Character and Statecraft
- By: Richard Davenport-Hines
- Narrated by: Ric Jerrom
- Length: 20 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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History in the House looks at the temperaments, ideas, imagination, prejudices, intentions and influence of a select and self-regulated group of men who taught modern history at Christ Church: Frederick York Powell, Arthur Hassall, Keith Feiling, J. C. Masterman, Roy Harrod, Patrick Gordon Walker, and Hugh Trevor-Roper (a Victorian radical, a staunch legitimist of the protestant settlement, a conservative, a Whig, a Keynesian, a socialist, and a contrarian).
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Shakespeare in a Divided America
- What His Plays Tell Us About Our Past and Future
- By: James Shapiro
- Narrated by: Fred Sanders
- Length: 9 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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The plays of William Shakespeare are rare common ground in the United States. 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. In a narrative arching from Revolutionary times to the present day, leading scholar James Shapiro traces the unparalleled role of Shakespeare’s four-hundred-year-old tragedies and comedies in illuminating the many concerns on which American identity has turned.
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An Entertaining History Lesson
- By David on 08-17-20
By: James Shapiro
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Contested Will
- Who Wrote Shakespeare?
- By: James Shapiro
- Narrated by: Wanda McCaddon
- Length: 11 hrs
- Unabridged
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For nearly two centuries, the authorship of William Shakespeare's plays has been challenged by writers and artists as diverse as Sigmund Freud, Mark Twain, Henry James, Helen Keller, Orson Welles, Malcolm X, and Sir Derek Jacobi. How could a young man from rural Warwickshire, lacking a university education, write some of the greatest works in the English language?
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Somewhat Surprised and very pleased
- By Geoff in NY on 04-10-10
By: James Shapiro
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Commander in Chief
- Partisanship, Nationalism, and the Reconstruction of Congressional War Powers
- By: Casey B. K. Dominguez
- Narrated by: Nancy Peterson
- Length: 8 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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Casey Dominguez's Commander in Chief systematically analyzes the authority that members of Congress ascribe to the president as commander in chief and the boundaries they put around that authority.
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