This important collection of essays brings together both established figures and new researchers to offer fresh perspectives on the ever controversial subject of the history of witchcraft. Using Keith Thomas's Religion and the Decline of Magic as a starting point, the contributors explore the changes of the last twenty-five years in the understanding of early modern witchcraft, and suggest new approaches, especially concerning the cultural dimensions of the subject. Witchcraft cases must be understood as power struggles, over gender and ideology as well as social relationships, with a crucial role played by alternative representations. Witchcraft was always a contested idea, never fully established in early modern culture but much harder to dislodge than has usually been assumed. The essays are European in scope, with examples from Germany, France and the Spanish expansion into the New World, as well as a strong core of English material.
Über den Autor Jonathan (Hrsg.) Barry
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Jonathan Barry is Professor of Early Modern History at the University of Exeter, UK, and currently a Wellcome Trust Senior Investigator for his project, 'The Medical World of Early Modern England, Ireland and Wales c.1500-1715'.Owen Davies is Professor of Social History at the University of Hertfordshire, UK. Together with Jonathan Barry and Willem de Blécourt, he edits the Palgrave Historical Studies in Witchcraft and Magic series.Cornelie Usborne is Professor Emerita of History at Roehampton University, UK, and Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Historical Research, University of London. She has shared her life with Willem de Blécourt, and thus with witchcraft studies, for many years.
