Focusing on early modern plays which stage encounters between peoples of different cultures, the volume explores the ways in which early modern plays stage dramatic geography and how this has shaped literary and theatrical heritage.

The essays collected here explore the representation of contemporary cartographic knowledge within a variety of English Renaissance dramatic texts. Including a preface and introduction that contextualize English cartographic awareness in the late sixteenth century, Playing the Globe provides a wide-ranging exploration of the rich variety of mental maps that shaped England's attitudes toward itself and others and continues to affect the ways in which the Anglo-American world imagines itself.