Witchcraft

A History in Thirteen Trials

De: Marion Gibson

Narrado por: Rose Akroyd

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.

©2024 Marion Gibson (P)2024 Simon & Schuster Audio

Fascinating history

Well-researched and read extremely well. This book looks at specific witch trials and why/how they occurred. We get to know much more about the witches and the witch hunters than most books provide. The book ends with the present day, which was a surprise to me, but presented well. A fine history.

7 Centuries or More!

well read. fascinating. definitely worth the credit. such a great book. they didn't burn witches. they burned women.

Writing was fabulous!

Incredible knowledge of a history that needs to be studied and discussed more. Great work!!!

Great narration. Great historical research. Great new perspective.

Great historical dive into the history of witchcraft and witch trials from the view of the hunted from early to modern times across the world.

Fascinating Throughout

This was fascinating all the way through to the end. I learned a lot about some of the people accused of being witches, about witch trials, and about cultural changes that happened around witch trials.

The final chapter about the witch hun’s of Stormy Daniels, president Donald Trump, and Judge Bret Kavanaugh

I find persecution of all these personalities, based on specious evidence to be most distasteful. That this still occurs with false accusations for political purposes both today and for at least a thousand years in the past shows how superstitious and vengeful our society remains.

Good in-depth story

Research well-documented and presented in an engaging way. Appreciated the linking with today’s ongoing challenges.

Interesting and Mystifying

Very detailed historic events; and how the story unfolded in chronological order. We'll researched and written.

The reasons past & present that women are accused and hated as witches

I liked the historical perspective all the way up to modern times. I had already read that in certain places in Africa, people are still killed today as suspected witches or for supposedly magical body parts. I was not aware of how Christian beliefs had contributed to a fear of witches in these places.
It was enlightening to hear how women today are still sometimes accused of being witches (literally and figuratively) if they do not conform to the norms of society and Christian religion.

Fascinating academic take on witchcraft

Found the narrator’s reading a bit dry and book became repetitive at times, but I appreciated the author’s overall redefinition of witchcraft and its application to modern day.