For nearly thirty years, Jeffrey B. Russell�s authoritative book has been the one illustrated history to which
anyone interested in this subject could turn with confidence. Now, in collaboration with Brooks Alexander, who
has himself conducted innovative research in the field, this classic book has been fully revised, with an updated
introduction and bibliography, new information throughout, and an extended account of witchcraft from ancient times
to the present day.
Drawing comparisons between modern sorcery and that of the ancient world, the book shows how the European witch
craze in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries developed out of a combination of ancient sorcery and medieval
Christian heresy, paganism, folklore, scholastic theology, and inquisitorial trials. Whether the diabolical witchcraft
for which men and women went to the stake ever existed is open to question. What matters more is that it was believed
to exist by intellectuals and peasants alike.