Stories of Great Witch Trials

Description

Ronal Seth's 'Stories of Great Witch Trials' is a little-known classic within the scholarship of the infamous witch-hunts of Europe and North America. In it, Seth tracks this witch craze, particularly within England, from the turn of the second millennium all the way through to the nineteenth century. He does so by presenting and discussing relatively detailed accounts of 17 major witch trials that were conducted within the courts of England during this time period. What is perhaps most appealing with Seth's writing here is that, not only does he rely on copious numbers of primary sources to present and critically interrogate these cases, he also centers the victims in them (most of them women and children) and does so in a way that is respectful to them, engaging to the casual readers, and informative to the scholarly readers. As such - and considering that "[t]his [was] the first time that detailed accounts of these major trials [had] been assembled between the covers of one book" - this text will be invaluable to historians of Europe and England, English legal scholars, feminist scholars, and anyone with any interest in the history of witchcraft in Europe and in the sociology and evolution of superstitious beliefs and practices in human societies. The latter includes casual readers who, no doubt, will find plenty of material here to amuse, shock, and educate them. I cannot recommend this text enough to most people interested in its subject matter.