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outcolder's review against another edition
3.0
Heartbreaking. I wanted more details about what witches supposedly did, like turn into cats or kiss goat's buttholes, but Gaskill is mostly about debunking Romantik conceptions and correcting estimates of executions. There were enough nuggets of interest to keep me going, and as always with the VSI series, the recommended further reading is a treasure.
annashiv's review against another edition
4.0
A great introduction if you don't know anything about Witchcraft. It was a little confusing at times, but uses good fact based ideas and was really interesting at the end. Not a lot added to the theory of witchcraft, but more just explaining where it comes from and how we react towards it sort of stuff. I recommend it to anyone looking for a slice of knowledge concerning witches through history.
drskaninchen's review against another edition
2.0
'Witchcraft: A Very Short Introduction' isn't a good title for this book. A better title would be 'A history of Witchcraft in Europe and the United States: A Very Short Introduction'. After reading the wonderful 'The wizard of the Crow' by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o I hoped to learn more about the role and history of witchcraft in African societies as well as witchcraft in the rest of the world. I didn't get that with this book.
What I didn't get either was an author who tried to be as subjective as possible. Malcolm Gaskill clearly doesn't believe in witches and disagrees with a number of historical theories. People who believe in witches are put away as reflecting their negative emotions, As a fellow non-believer in witches I find this really disrespectful.
What I didn't get either was an author who tried to be as subjective as possible. Malcolm Gaskill clearly doesn't believe in witches and disagrees with a number of historical theories. People who believe in witches are put away as reflecting their negative emotions, As a fellow non-believer in witches I find this really disrespectful.
marionhoney's review
challenging
informative
medium-paced
2.0
I listened to the audiobook and unfortunately did not enjoy the voice of the narrator so this likely impacted my experience. There were too many subtle tones of Western white supremacy and academic imperialism for me to fully feel comfortable with the author's analysis and relaying of historical documents. All books are political; ones that claim to take a neutral point of view of history often, even if unintentionally, reinforce the status quo and oppressive systems.
elenavarg's review against another edition
Didn’t bother finishing this. Can’t tell if it’s a good introduction to studying the history of witchcraft, but to me it was odd to choose an author who specializes in the European witchtrials to write this. It was way too eurocentric, awfully elitistic and fairly narrowminded view on the term ”witchcraft”, however much the author repeated that it’s very difficult to define the term.