Mera Flaumenhaft has given us superb analyses of Aeschylus, Euripides, Machiavelli, and Shakespeare. Beyond this, she has demonstrated the social and political function of drama in maintaining and strengthening community. Not only those interested in the history of drama, but also anyone concerned with the problem of community in modern society has much to learn from this sensitive and insightful treatment.

Mary P. Nichols, Emerita Professor of Political Science at Baylor University

This is a very fine book. Mera Flaumenhaft displays both sound scholarship and a distinctive and original approach. She teaches something new-how to view as well as how to read a play. I know of no one else who has tackled the combination of issues she discusses-certainly not in the philosophical way or with the keen literary eye that she has.

Jan H. Blits

Mera Flaumenhaft is an acute and sensitive reader...

Catherine H. Zuckert

Flaumenhaft never lets us forget the didactic role that the theater plays, but the real strength of this book lies in the insistence that we can only understand that didacticism if we attend to the context in which we are observers of representations...Flaumenhaft's book keeps us wonderfully alert to how much we can learn about ourselves, about others, about the nature of communal life by studying the politics of play watching.

The St. John's Review Dis .40

These essays are as deep as they are lucid; Flaumenhaft succeeds splendidly in her goal of using 'ordinary language' to 'think about the primary questions in our real lives.'

William Mullen, Bard College