Week 9: "Witchcraft and Magic in Europe. Vol. 5: 18th & 19th Centuries"

Volume 5 in a 6 volume series on the subject of witchcraft, magic and the occult in Europe from ancient times to the 20th century, the main criticism leveled at this book may be its lack of deep socio-cultural analysis. What one gets is a very rich bibliography as well as descriptive overview of a number of different geographic regions. Legal history and the history of elite beliefs dominate here, with all three authors showing that a wide-variety of factors played into the lessening of witch-persecutions in the eighteenth century. The final section focuses mostly on literary and philosophical documents. Not only the new sciences of observation and experiment, but general trends in the abandonment of judicial torture, conspired to end mass witch-hunting and almost completely wipe out belief in witchcraft among elites in the late 18th century. 

Reviews of "The Athlone History of Witchcraft and Magic in Europe. Volume 5"

1. Review by T. O. Beidelman
2. Review included in "The Pursuit of Reality: Recent Research into the History of Witchcraft" by   Malcolm Gaskill