Ton Hoenselaars is Associate Professor in the English Department at Utrecht University. He is the author of Images of Englishmen and Foreigners in the Drama of Shakespeare and his Contemporaries (1992). He is also editor and co-editor of a number of collections including Shakespeare's Italy (1993, revised edition 1997), Reclamations of Shakespeare (1994), and 400 Years of Shakespeare in Europe (2003). Dennis Kennedy's books include The Spectator and the Spectacle: Audiences in Modernity and Postmodernity, The Oxford Encyclopedia of Theatre and Performance, Looking at Shakespeare: A Visual History of Twentieth-Century Performance, Foreign Shakespeare, and Granville Barker and the Dream of Theatre. Shakespeare in Asia: Contemporary Performance is due late 2009 (edited with Yong Li Lan). He has twice been a fellow of the National Endowment for the Humanities in the USA, twice won the Freedley Award for theatre history, received the Chancellor's Distinguished Research Award at the University of Pittsburgh, the Berkeley Fellowship at Trinity College Dublin, and was elected to the Royal Irish Academy and Academia Europaea. His own plays have been performed in New York, London, and many other places, and he has frequently worked as a dramaturg and director in professional theatres.

'… the book will deservedly find a wide audience across the English/Drama subject a read, offering cogent textual and performance criticism as well as theorized rejection of recent disintegrationist responses to the history plays.' Gabriel Egan, New Theatre Quarterly

• Acknowledgements; List of illustrations; List of contributors; Foreword: histories and nations Dennis Kennedy; Introduction: Shakespeare's history plays in Britain and abroad Ton Hoenselaars; Part I: Introduction: alienating histories Ton Hoenselaars; 1. Ireland as foreign and familiar in Shakespeare's histories Andrew Murphy; 2. Welshness in Shakespeare's English histories Lisa Hopkins; 3. A French history of Henry V Jean-Michel Déprats; 4. Shakespeare's history plays in Japan Daniel Gallimore; Part II: Introduction: the appropriated past Ton Hoenselaars; 5. Rent-a-past: Italian responses to Shakespeare's histories (1800–1950) Mariangela Tempera; 6. Brecht and the rediscovery of Henry VI James N. Loehlin; 7. Shakespeare's histories in cycles Edward Burns; 8. Shakespeare's history plays in Bulgaria Alexander Shurbanov and Boika Sokolova; Part III: Introduction: stage adaptations of the histories Ton Hoenselaars; 9. Shakespeare's English histories at the Vienna Burgtheater Manfred Draudt; 10. The Spanish premiere of Richard II Keith Gregor; 11. Shakespearean history at the Avignon Festival Dominique Goy-Blanquet; 12. Two Flemings at war with Shakespeare Ton Hoenselaars; Select bibliography; Index.

Ton Hoenselaars is Associate Professor in the English Department at Utrecht University. He is the author of Images of Englishmen and Foreigners in the Drama of Shakespeare and his Contemporaries (1992). He is also editor and co-editor of a number of collections including Shakespeare's Italy (1993, revised edition 1997), Reclamations of Shakespeare (1994), and 400 Years of Shakespeare in Europe (2003). Dennis Kennedy's books include The Spectator and the Spectacle: Audiences in Modernity and Postmodernity, The Oxford Encyclopedia of Theatre and Performance, Looking at Shakespeare: A Visual History of Twentieth-Century Performance, Foreign Shakespeare, and Granville Barker and the Dream of Theatre. Shakespeare in Asia: Contemporary Performance is due late 2009 (edited with Yong Li Lan). He has twice been a fellow of the National Endowment for the Humanities in the USA, twice won the Freedley Award for theatre history, received the Chancellor's Distinguished Research Award at the University of Pittsburgh, the Berkeley Fellowship at Trinity College Dublin, and was elected to the Royal Irish Academy and Academia Europaea. His own plays have been performed in New York, London, and many other places, and he has frequently worked as a dramaturg and director in professional theatres.

'… the book will deservedly find a wide audience across the English/Drama subject a read, offering cogent textual and performance criticism as well as theorized rejection of recent disintegrationist responses to the history plays.' Gabriel Egan, New Theatre Quarterly

• Acknowledgements; List of illustrations; List of contributors; Foreword: histories and nations Dennis Kennedy; Introduction: Shakespeare's history plays in Britain and abroad Ton Hoenselaars; Part I: Introduction: alienating histories Ton Hoenselaars; 1. Ireland as foreign and familiar in Shakespeare's histories Andrew Murphy; 2. Welshness in Shakespeare's English histories Lisa Hopkins; 3. A French history of Henry V Jean-Michel Déprats; 4. Shakespeare's history plays in Japan Daniel Gallimore; Part II: Introduction: the appropriated past Ton Hoenselaars; 5. Rent-a-past: Italian responses to Shakespeare's histories (1800–1950) Mariangela Tempera; 6. Brecht and the rediscovery of Henry VI James N. Loehlin; 7. Shakespeare's histories in cycles Edward Burns; 8. Shakespeare's history plays in Bulgaria Alexander Shurbanov and Boika Sokolova; Part III: Introduction: stage adaptations of the histories Ton Hoenselaars; 9. Shakespeare's English histories at the Vienna Burgtheater Manfred Draudt; 10. The Spanish premiere of Richard II Keith Gregor; 11. Shakespearean history at the Avignon Festival Dominique Goy-Blanquet; 12. Two Flemings at war with Shakespeare Ton Hoenselaars; Select bibliography; Index.