This is the first book to offer a detailed modern survey of Witchcraft historiography. By using a broad chronological structure, from contemporary responses through to modern day, the book draws on contributions from a range of leading experts in the field to provide a much-needed overview of the area.

'Eleven distinguished scholars have contributed to this volume of essays, each surveying the key works that exemplify a particular way of approaching the multi-faceted problem of interpreting the history of witchcraft and witch trials...provides excellent signposts through a very tangled forest.' -Jacqueline Simpson, Folklore

Autorentext
WILLEM DE BLÉCOURT Lecturer, University of Surrey, Roehampton, UK PETER ELMER Senior Lecturer in the History of Science, Technology and Medicine, The Open University, UK MARION GIBSON Lecturer in English Literature, University of Exeter, UK KATHERINE HODGKIN Principal Lecturer in History, University of East London, UK RICHARD JENKINS Professor of Sociology, University of Sheffield, UK BRIAN P. LEVACK John Green Regents Professor in History, University of Texas, USA P. G. MAXWELL-STUART Honorary Lecturer in History University of St. Andrews, UK MARKO NENONEN Assistant Professor in History, University of Tampere, Finland JO PEARSON Senior Lecturer in Religious Studies, Liverpool Hope University, UK RAISA MARIA TOIVO Lecturer in History, University of Tampere, Finland CHRISTA TUCZAY Lecturer in Medieval History and Literature, University of Vienna, Austria JULIETTE WOOD Associate Lecturer in the Department of Welsh, University of Cardiff, UK

Inhalt
Introduction; J.Barry & O.Davies The Contemporary Historical Debate 1400-1800; P.G.Maxwell-Stuart Science, Medicine and Witchcraft; P.Elmer The Nineteenth-Century: Medievalism and Witchcraft 1800-1914; C.Tuczay The Reality of Witchcults Reasserted: Fertility and Satanism; J.Wood The Witch-Craze as Holocaust: The Rise of Persecuting Societies; R.M.Toivo Culture Wars: Religion and Acculturation; M.Nenonen The Return of the Supernatural; W.de Blecourt Crime and the Law; B.P.Levack Thinking Witchcraft: The Linguistic Turn and Intellectual History; M.Gibson Gender, Mind and Body: Feminism and Psychoanalysis; K.Hodgkin The Social Anthropology of Witchcraft: Rationality and Function of Beliefs; R.Jenkins Writing Witchcraft: The Historian's History, the Practioner's Past; J.Pearson-Overend