Stephen Greenblatt

When chaos reigns, while barbaric and fanatical rulers, both ecclesiastical and secular, systematically burn entire libraries, book hunters, secret heroes of history, travel the world saving and copying texts, threatened by the madness of censors, with the noble purpose of preventing the ultimate loss of human knowledge.

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As Man Booker Prize-winning writer Howard Jacobson retells The Merchant of Venice, 400 years after Shakespeare’s death, he travels with Alan Yentob to the ghetto in Venice to explore Shakespeare's most performed play - and in particular the character of the most divisive fictional Jew in history, Shylock. On their journey, Howard and Alan examine the evidence behind the charge of antisemitism against Shakespeare. How did his old Jew from Venice become such a useful propaganda tool during the Third Reich, and what was behind the absurd and infamous proposal to cut off a 'pound of flesh'?