Witch, Wicce, Mother Goose: The Rise and Fall of the Witch Hunts in Europe and North America - Hardcover

Thurston, Prof Robert

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0582438063 ISBN 13: 9780582438064

Verlag: Longman, 2001

Inhaltsangabe

 Tens of thousands of people were persecuted and put to death as witches between 1400 and 1700 – the great age of witch hunts. Why did the witch hunts arise, flourish and decline during this period? What purpose did the persecutions serve? Who was accused, and what was the role of magic in the hunts? This important reassessment of witch panics and persecutions in Europe and colonial America both challenges and enhances existing interpretations of the phenomenon. Locating its origins 400 years earlier in the growing perception of threats to Western Christendom, Robert Thurston outlines the development of a ‘persecuting society’ in which campaigns against scapegoats such as heretics, Jews, lepers and homosexuals set the scene for the later witch hunts. He examines the creation of the witch stereotype and looks at how the early trials and hunts evolved, with the shift from accusatory to inquisitorial court procedures and reliance upon confessions leading to the increasing use of torture.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Robert Thurston is Professor of History at the University of Miami.

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Back cover: `Lively and readable.  It is written in a style as personal and attractive as any I have encountered...It has just the right balance of magisterial detachment and personal insight.' 

Ronald Hutton, University of Bristol  

The European and American witch hunts, including the Salem Trials, are one of the most notorious episodes in our history. So far, books on the hunts have offered quite narrow accounts of one period or religion. Witch Wicce Mother Goose shows instead the long cultural background of the hunts and the role of the individual and personal decision in producing or preventing witch trials.  

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Longman
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2001
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0582438063
• ISBN 13: 9780582438064
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Auflage: 1
• Anzahl der Seiten: 240
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Riccardo Bacigalupo; riccardo.bacigalupo@sanoma.it; ; Sanoma Italia Via Arconati, 1 �; Milano; 20135; Italien