Author Description

Introduces readers to the current state of debate and to future directions for investigation. Covers such fundamental topics as: witchcraft as an intellectual and theological problem; neighbourly tensions related to witchcraft accusations; the issue of witchcraft and gender; the problem of the decline of witch-craft persecution. This book is characterized throughout by a straightforward approach which guides the reader through the sometimes difficult details of this fascinating but much-misunderstood subject. The interpretive text is accompanied by a selection of documentary extracts, some of them never previously published, which allows the reader to get to grips with witchcraft as it was experienced in the past, and to understand how historians have constructed their interpretations of early modern witchcraft.