Such specificity is then teased out to assist the undergraduate, hobby historian, researcher, and educator alike to understand how approximately 90,000 individuals were prosecuted for witchcraft and half of these later were executed. A carefully defined working vocabulary helps the reader to understand differentiations between witches and warlocks, maleficia and magic, and devil worship and demonic possession. By examining the dynamic social, religious, and economic conditions at play, Levack demonstrates that such understanding does not come easily. Levack’s ongoing research aims to illuminate the causes of the “great European witch-hunt” (2). Levack’s extensive research and attention to detail are unquestionably why these books have endured through multiple editions and printings. This 2016 edition was released with a comprehensive source book, now in its second edition, and access to a companion website as well. Levack released his first book on this topic in 1987-thirty years ago and that book, The Witch-Hunt in Early Modern Europe (Routledge), is now in its fourth edition. A complex set of circumstances and often hard to understand social conventions led to the phenomenon of witch hunting in Europe during the early modern period.
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