As many theatre scholars have aptly demonstrated, dynamic spaces and interstices between and among epochs, terrains, and even concepts can prove fertile ground for theoretical study. D. J. Hopkins adds to this body of work with his book City/Stage/Globe: Performance and Space in Shakespeare's London. Focusing on the potent point of time between the medieval and Renaissance eras (using the term “postmedieval”), Hopkins explores the spaces of the city of London and how performance both interacted with and shaped the geographical meanings in London. This postmedieval moment in history, according to Hopkins, constitutes a moment “during which performing was supplanted by looking” as a way to understand and engage with the city of London (2). Hopkins asserts that the medieval era employed a culture of performance that eventually gave way to the Renaissance's emphasis on visual representation (2); his book explores this dynamic space of change.

In City/Stage/Globe, Hopkins examines this shift from performance to observation through a variety of avenues. Theatrical performances, regal processions, maps, texts, and portraits all add to the collection of evidence that Hopkins assembles. Though unrelated at first glance, the articles of inquiry included in the book help to illuminate the author's thesis of a performance culture yielding to a culture of visual representation. Indeed, gathering artifacts (whether cartographic, literary, or theoretical) is one of Hopkins's strengths. Deftly incorporating quotations and theories of other scholars, he both builds upon and tweaks their arguments while creating a seamless map of his own to guide the reader along the many paths through the city, experienced through performance and visual representation.

Hopkins divides City/Stage/Globe into four main chapters, each centered on cultural activities that “challenge the boundaries of the printed texts” (7), roughly between the birth and death of Shakespeare, from 1564 to 1616 (hence the subtitle of the book: Performance and Space in Shakespeare's London). In Chapter 1, the longest and most detailed chapter, Hopkins studies images, texts, and performances that demonstrate the start of London's shift into the postmedieval period. Queen Elizabeth's 1559 procession through the streets of London, different kinds of maps with different intents and viewpoints, and three plays (John Lyly's Midas, the anonymous medieval play Hickscorner, and Ben Jonson's Volpone) that include conceptual and geographical space all serve as case studies through which Hopkins unfolds his theory of performance in postmedieval London. These documents and performances reveal how the early modern spaces of London “emerged, in conjunction and contention, with medieval space” (63).

Chapters 2–4 consider additional cultural performances and their respective identities apart from and enmeshed in the written word. Chapter 2 focuses on different maps of travelers in the late medieval period and explores how those maps help to reconstruct pedestrian performances that shaped the ways in which city dwellers viewed the city. King James's 1604 royal procession dominates Chapter 3; through a close analysis of the texts that recorded the event, Hopkins unearths the reconfigurations of the imagined and actual spaces of the city as evinced by the performances on that day. Chapter 4 returns to the stage proper to visit two of Shakespeare's plays (Julius Caesar and Coriolanus) and how they represented urban spaces and affected the real and imagined spaces of London. The concluding chapter draws attention to the event that erased much of London's urban space and ended the postmedieval period: the Great Fire of 1666. Though the architectural shift from medieval to Renaissance London occurred swiftly with the help of the fire, the change from a culture of performing to a culture of seeing was, as Hopkins convincingly proves, a long time coming.

Just as the subjects of inquiry in City/Stage/Globe vary in content and form, so the target audiences of this book will be equally assorted. Theatre scholars will benefit from Hopkins's use of performance theory and his descriptions of the “everyday performances” in postmedieval London. Students and scholars studying London history will find much of interest, since the book covers artifacts from maps to monuments to plays and books from the Elizabethan and Jacobean reigns. Those interested in a first encounter with embodied space also can learn from the book; in terms of spatial studies, the author keeps the text at a relatively basic level. For example, Hopkins employs de Certeau and Lefebvre to explain very fundamental concepts of spatial studies, such as the idea that space is not merely the square footage of a building but also includes lived and imaged experience as well. This list of possible audiences of City/Stage/Globe is by no means exhaustive, for the collection of subjects and theoretical frameworks allows a way in to the text from a multitude of academic fields.

And it is Hopkins's employment of multiple means of entry to the postmedieval performances that makes the book ultimately successful. He pays close attention not only to the results of observation and documentation (be it on a map or in a portrait), but also to the perspective and vantage point of the seer as well. City/Stage/Globe allows the reader to experience the historical cultural performances with an understanding of the crucial role of the subject. As readers, we are able to make our own virtual pedestrian performances and explore the postmedieval London city with Hopkins guiding the way.