Tyrant by Stephen Greenblatt ** ( of 4)

Not once does Stephen Greenblatt or William Shakespeare mention Donald Trump by name but it is obvious from page one that at least one of the authors has Trump on the brain and the other predicted him 500 years ago. What Greenblatt does best is make it painfully clear that tyrants of all ages and locations bear many of the same character traits: insecurity, bullying, toady advisors to whom they have no special allegiance, narcissism, abusive relationships with women, and an absence of empathy.

Shakespeare's tyrants like Richard II, Macbeth, Julius Caesar, and King Lear seen through a Trumpian lens are sadly familiar. Their adherents are the same group of people either willingly hoodwinked out of desperation for their personal plights or self-serving jerks who think they can ride the tyrant's coattails for personal gain.

It is in some ways encouraging to recognize that Trump is not unique to America or our era: his type has been around since the beginning of power struggles. The lines from Shakespeare's plays used by Greenblatt to make his point are as difficult to penetrate as the original English in which they are written, leaving his readers largely dependent upon Greenblatt's unparalleled expertise as a Shakespearean scholar. Greenblatt's tirades are a delight (precisely because they are disguised as generalizations about tyrants and not javelins precisely aimed at our current menace), but the connection to Shakespeare feels more like a novelty than a necessity.