Witchcraft: A History in Thirteen Trials

National Bestseller A New Yorker Best Book of 2024 A "thought-provoking and timely" (The Times, London) global history of witch trials across Europe, Africa, and the Americas, told through thirteen distinct trials that illuminate a pattern of demonization and conspiratorial thinking that has profoundly shaped human history. This "inventive and compelling" (The Times Literary Supplement, London) work of social history travels through thirteen witch trials across history, some famous--like the Salem witch trials--and some lesser-known: on Vardø island, Norway, in the 1620s, where an indigenous Sami woman was accused of murder; in France in 1731, during the country's last witch trial, where a young woman was pitted against her confessor and cult leader; in Lesotho in 1948, where British colonial authorities executed local leaders. Exploring how witchcraft was feared, then decriminalized, and then reimagined as gendered persecution, Witchcraft takes on the intersections between gender and power, indigenous spirituality and colonial rule, political conspiracy and individual resistance. Offering a striking, dramatic journey unspooling over centuries and across continents, Witchcraft is a "well-rounded insight into some of the strangest and cruelest moments in history" (Buzz Magazine), giving voice to those who have been silenced by history.

About the Author :
Marion Gibson is Professor of Renaissance and Magical Literatures at the University of Exeter, UK. She is the author of seven academic books on witches in history and literature: Reading Witchcraft; Possession, Puritanism, and Print; Witchcraft Myths in American Culture; Imagining the Pagan Past; Rediscovering Renaissance Witchcraft; Witchcraft: The Basics and, with Jo Esra, Shakespeare's Demonology. Marion has also edited five books for publishers such as Routledge and Ashgate, published around twenty chapters and articles, and she is General Editor of the series Elements in Magic for Cambridge University Press. Witchcraft: A History in Thirteen Trials is her most recent work.

Review :
"It is wonderful to come across a book that breathes such fresh life and energy into a well-worked subject, covering a huge range of time and space with a unified, passionate and convincing message. Any expert is going to learn something new from it, any newcomer to be enthralled and motivated." --Ronald Hutton, author of The Witch "These stories of witchcraft, true and vividly told, demonstrate the potent reality of belief in evil and how in any era or place fear can be weaponised and marginal people, mostly women, labelled as wicked and dangerous. Together they comprise not just a history of witchcraft but a cautionary tale of the uncomfortably human habits of paranoia and persecution." --Malcom Gaskill, author of The Ruin of All Witches "By putting the focus on a selection of history's most fascinating--and disturbing--witch trials, the author simultaneously tells the wider history of the witch hunts, from the fifteenth century to the present day. It is a story at once archaic and shockingly modern. A brilliant book" --Tracy Borman, author of Elizabeth's Women "Erudite, insightful and provocative. This investigation of witch trials--and of the long shadow cast by women's vilification as witches over our modern lives - is essential, rage-inducing reading." --Annie Garthwaite, author of Cecily and The King's Mother "The trials of the accused people in Witchcraft return to us, in detail, lives about which we might otherwise know nothing." --The New Yorker "Belong[s] firmly within the contemporary examination of the United States' ongoing and multifaceted satanic panic." --The Washington Post "Thought-provoking and timely... Searing" --Jessie Childs, The Times "Inventive and compelling... A work of restitution and historical reparation, an attempt to give voice to those who have been silenced over the centuries" --Times Literary Supplement "From demonology to royal ascensions, Gibson demonstrates how identity politics, power plays and cultural differences all crashed together to allow these historic injustices to occur... A well-rounded insight into some of the strangest and cruellest moments in history." --Buzz Magazine "Thirteen witch trials are brought vividly to life in Gibson's wide-ranging book" --Daily Mail "Gibson tells the story of the women and men whom those in power tried to silence -- sometimes permanently." --BookRiot "A fascinating and revelatory look at real witch hunts...[Gibson] fashion[s] a book that is at once readable and informative, an energetic and declarative statement on a particular brand of cruelty that is at its most historically hysterical and rotten" --BookReporter "A thought-provoking, sweeping work of social history." --Kirkus "An empathetic survey of witch trials spanning seven centuries and three continents... this vividly drawn and often surprising account succeeds in its aim to provide an expansive vision of the witch trial that extends far beyond Salem." --Publishers Weekly