A collection of essays exploring questions of colonialism and race with respect to the works of Shakespeare. The volume is divided into sections examining, respectively, the critical analysis of Shakespeare within early modern European contexts and the later reception of the same works. Shakespeare’s oeuvre is theorized as a constitutive element of global connected histories, an available resource for postcolonial receptions of colonial history, and a lexicographical mechanism for the theorization of colonial processes themselves. The volume as a whole engages conversations in postcolonial theory and Shakespeare studies.