"To my mind this book deserves to cause an earthquake in Shakespeare studies." --John Carey, Emeritus Merton Professor of English, University of Oxford "This challenging book combines a wealth of new contextual material with a sharp eye for the details of contemporary staging. Fitter makes us revisit many familiar passages as if for the first time -- a very rare thing in Shakespeare criticism." --David Norbrook, Professor of English, University of Oxford "A stunning academic achievement ... indispensable readings..Patiently tracing how the conditions of the decade Fitter calls the Black Nineties show up in the language and plots of Shakespeare's plays", [the argument is] "for a skeptic ... properly nuanced, ultimately convincing." --Charles Ross, Professor and Director of Comparative Literature, Purdue University, Renaissance Quarterly "This study of Shakespeare's early work -- 2 Henry VI, The Taming of the Shrew, Romeo and Juliet, and analysed at greatest length, As You Like It --- argues that the plays leave a number of clues that reveal his political leanings... Fitter is often a keen, sometimes astute reader ... he makes a number of substantial points about the topical nature of the plays." --Andrew Hadfield, University of Sussex,Times Literary Supplement "Massively and scrupulously researched" the findings "are frequently a revelation, enabling us to notice things in Shakespeare that previously we had skipped over...[An] always closely and passionately argued book that makes a persuasive case for a populist, oppositional Shakespeare that conservatives (as well as antisocialist 'theoretical' and 'historicizing') approaches have prevented us from seeing. I look forward eagerly to Fitter's promised volume on Shakespeare's later career." --Peter Holbrook, University of Queensland, Australia, Modern Philology