Shakespeare's Restless World released on cd and download.

AudioGo have just sent out a press release with details for a cd and download release of Shakespeare's Restless World, which completed its radio broadcast last week:

"‘It was the best of times, it was the worst of times’, especially for William Shakespeare in the reign of Elizabeth I. Hot on the heels of the hugely successful A History of the World in 100 Objects comes Shakespeare’s Restless World in which Neil MacGregor, Director of the British Museum, looks at the world through the eyes of Shakespeare's audience by exploring objects from that turbulent period. Examining different artefacts, Neil discusses how Shakespeare's audiences understood and made sense of the unstable and rapidly changing world in which they lived. With old certainties shifting around them, in a time of political and religious unrest and economic expansion, Neil asks what the plays would have meant to the public when they were first performed.

"He also analyses the great issues of the day that preoccupied the public and helped shape Shakespeare’s works and considers what they can reveal about the concerns and beliefs of Shakespearean England. With contributions from Shakespeare scholars, historians and experts on witchcraft and warfare, fencing and food, luxury trade and many other topics, these programmes are both diverting and enlightening. They discuss the issues these objects raise - everything from exploration and discovery to violence, entertainment and the plague."