Bibliograph

Type

Label

The hollow crown, Shakespeare on how leaders rise, rule, and fall, Eliot A. Cohen

Language

eng

Bibliography note

Includes bibliographical references and index

Index

index present

Literary Form

non fiction

Main title

The hollow crown

Nature of contents

bibliography

Oclc number

1370003540

Responsibility statement

Eliot A. Cohen

Sub title

Shakespeare on how leaders rise, rule, and fall

Summary

"More so than any politician or philosopher, it is William Shakespeare who can teach us about power. What it is, what it means, how it is gained, used, and lost. From the princes and kings of Henry IV to the scheming senators of Julius Caesar, politics fills his plays: brutal cunning, Machiavellian manipulation, fatal overreach, even the rare possibility of redemption. And it is these enduring narratives that can teach us how power plays out to this day. In The Hollow Crown, military scholar Eliot A. Cohen decodes Shakespeare's understanding of politics as theater, shedding light on how businesses, corporations, and governments work in the modern world. The White House, after all, is a court, with intrigues and rivalries just as Shakespeare described, as is an army, a department of state, or even a university. And, besides their settings, what most of all defines these various dramas are their characters, in all their ambition, cruelty, hope, and humanity. Cohen looks to the inspiring speeches of Henry V to better understand John F. Kennedy, to Richard III's darkness to plumb Adolf Hitler's psychology, and to Prospero from The Tempest for a window into George Washington's graceful abdication of power. Ultimately, through Cohen's incisive gaze, Shakespeare's work becomes a skeleton key into the lives of the leaders who, for good or ill, have made and remade our world"--, Provided by publisher

Table Of Contents

Introduction: The arc of power -- Why Shakespeare? Part I: acquiring power. Inheriting it -- Acquiring it -- Seizing it. Part II: exercising power. Inspiration -- Manipulation -- Murder. Part III: losing poewr. Innocence and arrogance -- Magic and self-deception -- Walking away from it -- Shakespeare's political vision -- Acknowledgments -- Notes -- Index

Classification