Shakespeare's history plays have been performed in recent years more than ever before throughout Britain, North America, and Europe. This volume is an accessible introduction to Shakespeare's historical and classical plays. Comprehensive in scope, it offers chapters on the individual plays and accounts of the genre of the history play, Renaissance theories of history, and masques and pageants. It compares them with other European history plays, and includes an account of women's roles, genealogical tables and a list of principal and recurrent characters.