Why on earth would William Bennett want to clean up Hollywood? Because no one's told him about William Shakespeare-the greatest dramatist in the history of the English language and the most subversive writer in the history of the world. That's part of the point of Michael Macrone's Naughty Shakespeare-a rowdy and rollicking collection of the Bard's bawdiest blusters and steamiest scenes, analyzed and explicated by the author of the "wonderfully informative" (San Francisco Chronicle) Brush Up series. Macrone delights and titillates as he shows us the difference between a "hobby-horse" and a "flax-wench," a "coxcomb" and a "cuckold," and "tupping" and "making the beast with two backs."

But there's more to Naughty Shakespeare than iambic indecency. Shakespeare's England brimmed with conflict, violence, social upheaval, and political intrigue. And Shakespeare used those frictions to keep his audience on the edge of their seats. Macrone plumbs the depths of the poet's various and conflicted views on race, religion, culture, sex and sexuality in concise, clear explanations. From Iago's un-P.C. hatred of Othello to Lady Macbeth's disturbing descent into the role of sexual and political predator, Shakespeare knew how to drop bombs on his public. And with Naughty Shakespeare Michael Macrone does too-lobbing a small grenade into today's culture wars while celebrating the scandalous side of life.