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Audiobooks & Books for Sale

It is impossible to overestimate the importance of this book. ” 
—Terri Apter, psychologist and author 

Holding a Mirror Up to Nature: Shame Guilt and Violence in Shakespeare is now a riveting new audio book with scenes performed by acclaimed actors to dramatize how much Shakespeare’s tragic heroes illuminate the psychology of those who commit violence in the contemporary world.

Audiobook

Whoever would have thought that William Shakespeare could help us prevent  murder in the twenty-first century?”

Holding a Mirror up to Nature

Authored by clinical psychiatrist James Gillgan and law professor David Richards. Published by Cambridge University Press.

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featuring

John Douglas Thompson

Nigel Gore

Tod Randolph 

FEATURING John Douglas Thompson whom The New York Times called “perhaps the greatest Shakespeare interpreter in contemporary theater," Nigel Gore, and Tod Randolph, this audio book is for everyone who loves Shakespeare and is curious about what causes and what prevents violence 

AUDIOBOOK NOW AVAILABLE AT 

AMAZON  |  AUDIBLE  |  BARNES & NOBLE

LISTEN TO AUDIOBOOK EXCERPTS: 
Holding a Mirror Up to Nature: Shame Guilt and Violence in Shakespeare 

Introduction read by James Gilligan
00:00 / 04:42
Chapter excerpt read by Nigel Gore
00:00 / 04:34

 James Gilligan and David A.J. Richards brilliantly explore how Shakespeare’s plays are among the most insightful sources for understanding human nature and human psychology…(enabling) us to understand not only what causes violence, but also how to prevent it.


Besel van der Kolk, New York Times bestselling author of
The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind and Body in the Healing of Trauma

ABOUT HOLDING A MIRROR UP TO NATURE:

AT A TIME when violence in America and Europe dominates the daily news, a groundbreaking new book co-authored by James Gilligan, an eminent psychiatrist who has worked with criminals, and David A.J. Richards, a legal scholar of toxic patriarchy, illuminates the ways in which Shakespeare offers unique insights into the causes of violence as well as its prevention. 

 

Now a riveting new audio production, Holding a Mirror Up to Nature: Shame, Guilt, and Violence in Shakespeare takes advantage of scenes performed by acclaimed actors to dramatize how much Shakespeare’s tragic heroes exhibit the psychology of those who commit violence in the contemporary world.

 

The voice of British-American actor John Douglas Thompson called “perhaps the greatest Shakespeare interpreter in contemporary theater,” together with women’s parts spoken by Shakespeare & Company’s distinguished Tod Randolph, and narration by award-winning theater star Nigel Gore, orchestrate this tour de force audiobook that belongs in the listening library of everyone who loves Shakespeare and is curious about what causes and what prevents violence.

 

 MORE 

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

James Gilligan

James Gilligan

James Gilligan is an American psychiatrist who has specialized in studying the causes and prevention of violence.  For 35 years he taught at the Harvard Medical School, where he became Director of the Institute of Law and Psychiatry. He has served as a consultant on the causes and prevention of violence to President Clinton, Tony Blair and the Law Lords of the House of Lords. More

William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare

 

William Shakespeare was an English playwright, poet and actor, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's greatest dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon".

 

His plays are perhaps his most enduring legacy, but his poems also remain popular to this day. More

David A.J. Richards 

David A.J. Richards 

 

David A.J. Richards is currently Edwin D. Webb Professor of Law at NYU, where he has taught constitutional law and criminal law for 35 years. He is the author of over twenty book on human rights and the basic constitutional rights of American constitutionalism as well as studies of nonviolence, Verdi’s operas, and mutual love as the key to resisting injustice. More

Understanding Violence

“It is impossible to overestimate the importance of this book.  James Gilligan and David Richards take us into the heart of human aggression, explaining the roots of 'evil deeds' that provide far more illumination than Freud's account of instinct or evolutionary accounts of dominance.  Through a creative probing of Shakespeare's genius, the authors link shared human needs to those acts of horror we would like to frame as 'inhuman' or 'alien.' Holding a Mirror Up to Nature takes us beyond Brene Brown's The Power of Vulnerability and Stephen Greenblatt's Tyrant to reveal the possibility of human life beyond violence.”

- Terri Apter is a writer, a psychologist, and former senior tutor at Newnham College, Cambridge.

Her books on family dynamics, identity and relationships have received international acclaim. Altered Loves: Mothers and Daughters During Adolescence was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. 

Appearances
Understanding Violence

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JOSH HAWLEY

A Feminism for Men
A feminism for men shows a solution that patriarchy hides as unmanly. 
 READ MORE

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