Ronald Hutton is professor of history, University of Bristol, and a leading authority on ancient, medieval, and modern paganism, the history of the British Isles in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and the global context of witchcraft beliefs.
“For anyone researching the subject, this is the book you’ve been
waiting for.”—Washington Post
“Magisterial . . . Hutton concerns himself with the bad, black
version of the craft that has terrified poor souls for centuries.
His approach blends a broad geographic sweep with the detailed
attention of microhistory.”—Kathryn Hughes, Guardian
“[A] panoptic, penetrating book.”—Malcolm Gaskill, London Review of
Books
“What he has done very valuably, though, is to put what most of us
know already into a far wider context, both geographically and
historically. It’s up to us then to examine our own notions of
witches and witchcraft—no longer threatening, but still perfectly
familiar.”—Wall Street Journal
“Hutton, a leading authority on paganism and witchcraft, traces the
idea of witches far beyond the Salem witch trials to beliefs and
attitudes about witches around the world throughout history.”—Los
Angeles Times
“There are several over-familiar images that we jump to when we
think of witches, even today: the hat, the broom, the cauldron. Yet
this scholarly, engrossing take on the witch travels across
centuries and continents to prove that it is a figure that is both
more pervasive and more diverse than we might expect.”—History
Revealed
“Ronald Hutton is the doyen of British occult studies. Through his
scrupulous, but always sympathetic, approach… his latest book
offers a convincing account of how an early conspiracy theory, the
spurious idea of an organised Satanic religion, came to obsess
political and religious authorities, killing in the process so many
simple healers and users of folk medicine.”—Ian Irvine,
Prospect
“The history of witchcraft and its persecution makes for
compelling, often terrifying reading. . . what makes [Hutton’s]
history unique is it provides a much longer – and broader
– perspective. The Witch draws upon previously neglected
anthropological and ethnographic findings to set the origins of
witchcraft and its subsequent persecution in an ancient and global
context.”—Tracy Borman, Literary Review
“This is an extremely ambitious, thought-provoking, challenging and
inspiring book.”—Dr. Willem de Blecourt, Reviews in History
“Ronald Hutton’s The Witch is a true masterpiece which follows
several intersecting strands of debate on these subjects to test if
a global approach can illuminate the early modern witch hunts”—
Gary K. Waite, Journal of Ecclesiastical History
"An engrossing journey through the world of witches and witchcraft.
Highly recommended for those fascinated by the nature and extent of
the notorious European Witch Trials."—Tony Robinson
"Eloquent, historically grounded, and global in reach, this is
essential reading for anyone interested in the social and political
context of witchcraft and the manipulation of supposed supernatural
powers."—Timothy Darvill, OBE, author of Prehistoric
Britain
"Few historical concepts come as imbued with horror and intrigue as
that slippery figure of the witch. Ronald Hutton has turned his
considerable expertise to this always-current subject, illuminating
the late Medieval and early modern idea of witches and witchcraft.
Readers looking for a rigorous interdisciplinary approach to the
history of witchcraft will devour this book."—Katherine
Howe, New York Times bestselling author of The
Physick Book of Deliverance Dane
“The book we have all been waiting for.”—Diane Purkiss, author of
The Witch in History: Early Modern and Twentieth-century
Representations
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