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What is dramatic romance? Scholars have long turned to Shakespeare´s biography to answer this question, marking his ´late plays´ as the beginning and end of the dramatic romance. This book identifies an earlier history for this genre, revealing how stage romances imaginatively expanded audience interest in England´s emerging global economy.

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List of Illustrations Acknowledgements Introduction - Romance and the Globe 1. Romancing Shakespeare 2. ´Asia of the one side, and Afric of the other´: Sidney´s Unities and the Staging of Romance 3. Imagined Empires: The Cultural Geography of Stage Romance 4. Chronicle History, Cosmopolitan Romance: Henr y V and the Generic Boundaries of the Second Tetralogy 5. Containing Romance and Plotting Empire in The Tempe st and Pericl es 6. Milton´s Imperial Mas k e: Staging Romance on the Border of Wales Coda - Global Romance after Shakespeare Appendix 1 Bibliography Index

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Despite the claims of Steven Pinker and others, violence has remained a historical constant since the Enlightenment, even though its forms and visibility have been radically transformed. Accordingly, the studies gathered here recast debate over violence in modern societies by undermining teleological and reassuring narratives of progress.

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