In 2005 James Shapiro’s 1599: A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare broke fresh ground in Shakespeare studies: a major feat, given the huge annual volume of new publications on Shakespeare.  Shapiro’s new angle is to devote an entire book not just to the works of a single year in Shakespeare’s life, but to the key social and political events as well. 1599 won him the Samuel Johnson Prize, and has remained at or near the top of the Shakespeare best-seller list ever since, a testament to Shapiro’s scholarly readability and to a popular hunger for material omitted by critics too focused on textual analysis and performance history.1606 repeats the format. This was the year that James I’s controversial Union Jack was raised for the first time, to angry En