No writer has been performed, adapted and translated in such a variety of languages and cultures as Shakespeare. This dazzlingly original book ranges across four continents and four centuries to show how Shakespeare was fascinated with the world, and the world became fascinated with Shakespeare. Blending travelogue and cultural history, it ranges from a troupe of English actors tramping the Baltic states in the early 1600s, via Bollywood and apartheid South Africa, to the skyscrapers of 21st-century Beijing.