The book deals with the role of government in our lives; with the cultural arrogance of Manifest Destiny and with Cuba as "a case in point"; with the storms of war that have pelted humankind; and with the cussedness and promise of human beings. The book probes the place of religion in public life. Finally, it will come to a halt as readers consider politics as practiced in the places where they live.

This book reinterprets British dramas of the early-nineteenth century through the lens of the star actors for whom they were written. Unlike most playwrights of previous generations, the writers of British Romantic dramas generally did not work in the theatre themselves. However, they closely followed the careers of star performers. Even when they did not directly know actors, they had what media theorists have dubbed "para-social interactions" with those stars, interacting with them through the mediation of mass communication, whether as audience members, newspaper and memoir readers, or...