{"product_id":"every-man-a-kingdom-michael-mcgilbourne-9798259238732","title":"Every Man a Kingdom: The Age of Shakespeare and the Birth of the Interior England 1599-1606","description":"\u003cb\u003eEvery Man a Kingdom\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eYou are the end point of an unbroken chain of survival.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eEvery person who came before you - through plague, war, famine, and flood - lived long enough to pass forward what was necessary for you to exist. You did not begin when you were born. You began when humanity began.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eEverything that happened between that beginning and this moment is not the past in any abstract sense. \u003ci\u003eIt is the story of the making of you.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eThis book takes you to one of the most extraordinary moments in that story.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eLondon. Bankside. 1599-1606.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA round, thatched theatre rises on the south bank of the Thames. Three thousand Londoners - apprentices, earls, merchants, and servants - stand in the same open yard, breathing the same air, watching the same stage. A playwright delivers pages and goes home without explanation. A young man behind a curtain holds the whole play in his hands while every actor holds only his part.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eA single question sits at the heart of this book: \u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eWhat if the stage did not \u003ci\u003einstall\u003c\/i\u003e a kingdom in the people watching - but \u003ci\u003erevealed\u003c\/i\u003e the one already there?\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eWhat does it mean that a prince asking whether to live or die made three thousand people hold their breath - not because they pitied him, but because they \u003ci\u003erecognised\u003c\/i\u003e him?\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eWhat is the difference between a performance and a mirror - when the audience cannot tell which one they are standing in front of?\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eWho holds the whole when everyone else holds only their part?\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eThe facts are extraordinary enough.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eThe Globe Theatre was built in 1599 from the dismantled timbers of a previous theatre, hauled across the frozen Thames by night to evade a landlord.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eShakespeare's company was paid forty shillings to perform \u003ci\u003eRichard II\u003c\/i\u003e - a play about a king's deposition - the afternoon before the Earl of Essex's rebellion. They were summoned before the Privy Council. They were not punished.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eThe plague of 1603 killed thirty thousand Londoners in a single season and closed the theatres for months.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eJohn Florio's 1603 English translation of Montaigne introduced a single sentence that changed everything: \u003ci\u003eEvery man bears the entire form of the human condition within him.\u003c\/i\u003e\n\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eNot one page of Shakespeare's original manuscripts survives. The plays exist because two old men spent a year above a printshop gathering pages from prompt-books that a book-keeper had never returned.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eHistory is not a sequence of dates.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eIt is the record of billions of lives lived forward through a present that felt, to each of them, exactly as urgent as yours does now.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThey paid a penny and stood in the October cold. They smelled the Thames and the tallow and the roasting nuts from the yard vendors. They leaned forward in the third verse of a willow song when a boy's voice cracked on a single note - and did not know why the cracking moved them more than the perfection had.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eFor homeschooling families: \u003c\/b\u003e You are already doing the most important thing - putting the story of humanity directly into your children's hands. The \u003ci\u003eBeyond His Story We Stand\u003c\/i\u003e series was written for you. Each book takes one moment in human history and makes it lived rather than memorised, felt rather than filed away. Not a textbook. Not a syllabus. A story your child will not want to put down - and that will leave them asking the questions that only wonder produces.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eEvery Man a Kingdom\u003c\/i\u003e is part of the \u003cb\u003eBeyond His Story We Stand\u003c\/b\u003e series - a chronological journey through human history, told through the eyes of the people official history forgot to record.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe plays survived.\u003c\/i\u003e \u003ci\u003eThey survived because someone chose to hold them.\u003c\/i\u003e \u003ci\u003eThat someone is now you.\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Michael McGilbourne\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9798259238732\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Independently Published\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 04\/28\/2026\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 176\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 0.46lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 8.50h x 5.50w x 0.41d","brand":"Michael McGilbourne","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":48997640438015,"sku":"9798259238732","price":13.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/every-man-a-kingdom-michael-mcgilbourne-9798259238732","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}