AN ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE
ACT Contemporary Theatre and Seattle Shakespeare Company have come together as Union Arts Center to present AN ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE by Henrik Ibsen, adapted by Amy Herzog, from September 20 to October 5, 2025. Librarians at Seattle Public Library created this list of books and films to enhance your experience of the show.
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An Enemy of the People
The script of AN ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE, for your reading pleasure.
Format: Book
Availability: All copies in use
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A History of the World in Six Plagues
AN ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE has taken on new resonance in the age of COVID. Bonhomme's thought-provoking history of 6 epidemics demonstrates how certain patterns of discrimination repeat themselves when humans confront deadly disease outbreaks.
Format: Book
Availability: Available
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Henrik Ibsen
Norwegian historian de Figueiredo has written an insightful, well-researched biography that highlights the contradictions between Ibsen’s conservative personal views and the often radical critique of society expressed in his plays.
Format: Book
Availability: Available
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Ganashatru
Satyajit Ray's 1990 film adaptation of AN ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE takes place in India, where Doctor Ashoke Gupta (Soumitra Chatterjee) discovers that the holy water at a local temple is contaminated and spreading illness among the townspeople.
Format: DVD
Availability: All copies in use
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Henrik Ibsen
Get a quick introduction to Ibsen’s life, work and lasting influence on modern theatre in this short streaming video.
Format: Streaming Video
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Henrik Ibsen
Ibsen biographer Michael Meyer narrates this program about the development of Ibsen’s style over the course of his career from his early struggles to his epic plays and beyond.
Format: Streaming Video
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Arthur Miller's Adaptation of An Enemy of the People
Miller significantly reworked Ibsen's play in his 1950 adaptation, changing the setting, modernizing the language and removing references to eugenics that he believed would have been unacceptable to audiences in that time period.
Format: Book
Availability: Available
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An Enemy of the People
This Oxford Classics edition of AN ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE also contains The Wild Duck and Rosmersholm, other Ibsen plays that feature complex characters grabbling with thorny social issues.
Format: Book
Availability: Available
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Jaws
Many critics have pointed out the parallels between the first half of Jaws and AN ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE, especially the uncanny similarity in how the mayors in both stories respond to a dire threat to public health.
Format: DVD
Availability: Available
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The Ghost Map
AN ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE was partly inspired by the public response to 19th-century cholera epidemics in Europe. Johnson's fascinating history of the 1854 London cholera epidemic documents the early applications of germ theory to public health.
Format: Book
Availability: Available
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