Marion Gibson

Gibson muestra cómo la idea demonológica de la bruja se originó, creció y fue cambiando con el tiempo, pero no murió. Un libro brillante y perturbador sobre una historia que es a la vez antigua y moderna.Los juicios de brujas nos parecen hoy arcaicos y descabellados, el mal recuerdo de una era oscurantista. Sin embargo, escuchamos con frecuencia hablar de caza de brujas en los medios de comunicacion, y nos resulta demasiado familiar la misoginia que provoco aquellas persecuciones. La profesora Marion Gibson toma como punto de partida trece celebres juicios a lo largo de siete siglos en Europa, Africa y Estados Unidos, para explorar los origenes de esta practica y contar una historia global de la brujeria y de la caza de brujas. Indaga tambien en la vida de algunas brujas, entre ellas Helena Scheuberin, Anny Sampson y Joan Wright, cuyas historias se han visto eclipsadas por las de aquellos hombres poderosos que las persiguieron, como el rey Jacobo I y el inquisidor general Matthew Hopkins.Un recorrido escalofriante desde la Edad Media hasta el siglo XXI por senderos poco conocidos, tales como la reinvencion de la brujeria a cargo de abogados e historiadores radicales de Francia, las sospechas de brujeria que llevaron al asesinato en la Era del Jazz de Pensilvania, o los juicios de brujas que hoy en dia se ocultan bajo otros disfraces. Una obra erudita, perspicaz y provocadora. Esta investigacion de los juicios de brujas es una lectura esencial que, inevitablemente, no puede dejar de despertar nuestra rabia.Annie GarthwaiteSi algo nos demuestran estos relatos, veridicos y vivamente contados, es como en cualquier epoca el miedo puede convertirse en un arma. No es solo una historia sobre la brujeria, tambien es una advertencia.Malcolm GaskillEs un libro de referencia. Muy interesante para entrar en la brujeria historica desde una perspectiva contemporanea: la de observar como los mecanismos que condenaron a aquellas mujeres siguen funcionando hoy en dia para denostar a los enemigos.Jacinto Anton, Babelia, El Pais Marion Gibson ofrece una reveladora perspectiva historica y cultural a la cuestion de la brujeria a lo largo de varias epocas, a la manera de la mejor cronica periodistica. Pablo Bujanlance, Malaga Hoy

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 Malcolm Gaskill author of The Ruin of All Witches Thought provoking and timely Searing Jessie Childs The Times In Witchcraft Professor Marion Gibson uses thirteen significant trials to tell the global history of witchcraft and witch hunts As well as exploring the origins of witch hunts through some of the most famous trials from the Middle Ages to the eighteenth century it takes us in new and surprising directions Three women were prosecuted under a version of the 1735 Witchcraft Act as recently as 2018 Professor Gibson also tells the stories of the witches mostly women like Helena Scheuberin Anny Sampson and Joan Wright whose stories have too often been overshadowed by those of the powerful men such as King James I and Witchfinder General Matthew Hopkins who hounded them Once a tool invented by demonologists to hurt and silence their enemies witch trials have been twisted and transformed over the course of history and the lines between witch and witch

If the witchfinders came to your town, who would you have believed and what would you have done?With the English civil wars raging in the background, Witchland reveals how economic uncertainty, religious extremism and deprivation created the ideal conditions for mass witch-hunting in Britain. Across the country, fear spread rapidly, and neighbours turned on one another in panic. Women and the poor were especially vulnerable, scapegoated by the powerful looking for someone to blame, and hundreds of witch trials across the country soon followed. The hysteria provided a handbook for similar trials to occur around the world, most famously just a few decades later in Salem. Moving from village to village, Professor Marion Gibson reveals how accusations grew out of everyday tensions poverty, grief, and resentment and how entire communities became involved in the persecution of the innocent. Drawing on newly uncovered historical records, this gripping historical account restores the voices of those accused of witchcraft. These were ordinary people, largely forgotten by history, along with their families and neighbours caught up in suspicion and moral panic.Both a powerful history and a warning from the past, Witchland is the captivating story of witchcraft, inequality and the violence that surfaces during times of political and economic upheaval.

National BestsellerA New Yorker Best Book of 2024A 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 famouslike the Salem witch trialsand some lesser-known: on Vard island, Norway, in the 1620s, where an indigenous Sami woman was accused of murder; in France in 1731, during the countrys 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.

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 taleMalcolm Gaskill, author of The Ruin of All Witches Thought-provoking and timely... SearingJessie Childs, The Times In Witchcraft, Professor Marion Gibson uses thirteen significant trials to tell the global history of witchcraft and witch-hunts. As well as exploring the origins of witch-hunts through some of the most famous trials from the Middle Ages to the eighteenth century, it takes us in new and surprising directions.Three women were prosecuted under a version of the 1735 Witchcraft Act as recently as 2018. Professor Gibson also tells the stories of the witches mostly women like Helena Scheuberin, Anny Sampson and Joan Wright, whose stories have too often been overshadowed by those of the powerful men, such as King James I and Witchfinder General Matthew Hopkins, who hounded them. Once a tool invented by demonologists to hurt and silence their enemies, witch trials have been twisted and transformed over the course of history and the lines between witch and witch-hunter blurred. For the fortunate, a witch-hunt is just a metaphor, but, as this book makes clear, witches are truly still on trial.

The captivating, compassionate account of a moral panic that swept across Britain in the decades before the Salem Witch Trials, leaving hundreds of so-called witches dead in its wake, by acclaimed historian and bestselling author Marion Gibson.During the English Civil War of the 1640s, a series of witch trials began in southeast England and Lowland Scotland. Fueled by religiosity, misogyny, and the economic stresses of war, the trials soon grew into a mass panic that transformed the nationand led to the deaths of over three hundred people during a ten-year span. Drawing on newly discovered historical documents, Gibson gives voice to the accused, whose stories were previously lost to time. Moving across England and Scotland, Witchland shows how the chaos and economic deprivation of wartime can exacerbate existing divides within communities, leaving those already without power particularly vulnerableespecially, during this time, impoverished women dependent on the goodwill of their neighbors. With each chapter focused on a different town and the lives and deaths of the people within it, Witchland is a historical drama that plays out both on the small scale of the town square and the large scale of the nation. Sweeping, intimate, and dramatic, Witchland is a gripping story of polarization, persecution, and a country ripped apart by fear.

Gibson muestra cómo la idea demonológica de la bruja se originó, creció y fue cambiando con el tiempo, pero no murió. Un libro brillante y perturbador sobre una historia que es a la vez antigua y moderna.Los juicios de brujas nos parecen hoy arcaicos y descabellados, el mal recuerdo de una era oscurantista. Sin embargo, escuchamos con frecuencia hablar de caza de brujas en los medios de comunicacion, y nos resulta demasiado familiar la misoginia que provoco aquellas persecuciones. La profesora Marion Gibson toma como punto de partida trece celebres juicios a lo largo de siete siglos en Europa, Africa y Estados Unidos, para explorar los origenes de esta practica y contar una historia global de la brujeria y de la caza de brujas. Indaga tambien en la vida de algunas brujas, entre ellas Helena Scheuberin, Anny Sampson y Joan Wright, cuyas historias se han visto eclipsadas por las de aquellos hombres poderosos que las persiguieron, como el rey Jacobo I y el inquisidor general Matthew Hopkins.Un recorrido escalofriante desde la Edad Media hasta el siglo XXI por senderos poco conocidos, tales como la reinvencion de la brujeria a cargo de abogados e historiadores radicales de Francia, las sospechas de brujeria que llevaron al asesinato en la Era del Jazz de Pensilvania, o los juicios de brujas que hoy en dia se ocultan bajo otros disfraces. Una obra erudita, perspicaz y provocadora. Esta investigacion de los juicios de brujas es una lectura esencial que, inevitablemente, no puede dejar de despertar nuestra rabia.Annie GarthwaiteSi algo nos demuestran estos relatos, veridicos y vivamente contados, es como en cualquier epoca el miedo puede convertirse en un arma. No es solo una historia sobre la brujeria, tambien es una advertencia.Malcolm Gaskill