Witchcraft Audiobook Libro.fm

Salem King James VI Malleus Maleficarum The world of witch hunts and witch trials sounds antiquated relics of an unenlightened and brutal age However witch hunt is heard often in the presentday media and the misogyny it is rooted in is all too familiar today A woman was prosecuted under the 1735 Witchcraft Act as recently as 1944

This book uses thirteen significant trials to explore the history of witchcraft and witch hunts As well as investigating some of the most famous trials from the middle ages to the 18th century it takes us in new and surprising directions It shows us how witchcraft was decriminalised in the 18th century only to be reimagined by the 1780s Romantic radicals We will learn how it evolved from being seen as a threat to Christianity to perceived as gendered persecution and how trials against chieftains in Africa stoked anger against colonial rule

Significantly the book tells the stories of the victims women such as Helena Scheuberin and Joan Wright whose stories have too often been overshadowed by those of the powerful men such as King James VI and I and Witchfinder General Matthew Hopkins who hounded them

While this will be a history of witchcraft the subject cannot be consigned to the history books Hundreds of people mostly women are tried and killed as witches every year in Africa WITCH HUNT is as common in our language today as ever it was and witches are still on trial across the world