[.ca] Witchcraze: New History of the European Witch Hunts, a (ISBN 0062510363)

Author's bias- the bane of the history student!:
I first read this book last year when I began studying Early-Modern Witchcraft at Monash University. Barstow's work was misleading then when I knew little on the topic, and laughable now that I know much, much more. Barstow had a pre-conceived idea of what she she wanted to say, and either didn't bother to find, or omitted anything that didn't fit in with her theory. This book says more about feminist politics than Witchcraft history. Gender was the primary focus of her study, and Barstow's world is only understandable in terms of gender (as opposed to the equally important socio-economic, religious and racial factors). Furthermore she believes that only women have gender, this shows an appaling lack of study for more and more accounts are appearing, not only of male witchcraft, but of male gender history. Witchcraft was too widespread and went on for too long to be so easily pidgeon-holed into terms as obvious or basic as gender. Historical representations of witchcraft should be taken on a case by case basis. Creating "models" for witchcraft (Barstow's elderly, marinalised female among others) does not help the issue, it confuses it. Anyone starting out serious study in this field would do better to read works by Dianne Purkiss, Deborah Willis or books pertaining to the case in Salem of Hugh Parsons who was the primary witch, his wife the secondary-where does this fit in to Barstow's model? Also, if you must read Barstow- also read the possession at Loudun(Certeau's or Rapley's) to see a witch trial that is the exact opposite of Barstows "norm". To fellow scholars I'd say read Barstow if only to see how one's political agendas or bias can effect your study. Be objective, keep reading and get all sides of the story!

Useful overview that gets to the heart of it:
I've read the other reviews which consistantly deny Barstow's premise: that the Witch Craze was the women's holocaust. Just read the book: and any other that attempts to break down by gender the numbers of those tortured and killed. Why gender? Because it is the single most glaring pattern in the witch persecutions! The Maleficius (handbook for persecuting witches) does not implicate male sexuality as a reason for torturing them, as it consistantly implicates women's sexuality. It does not mention how to 'recognize' male witches, but it begins from the premise that women 'live by the moon and so are able to draw the hearts of men toward the pagans,' and thus, witches are women because only they were 'weak' enough to fall prey to the devil. Interesting, isn't it, how the artists and writers of the period always portray witches as women, from Shakespeare to Holbein? Don't blame Anne Barstow, just look for the overwhelming pattern, as she has done. That said, there are a few weaknesses in the book. One, although she tries to nail the number of those killed, she still comes up short. Anecdotally, I visited the town of Osnabruck, Germany, this summer and discovered their numbers of murders of women were around 400, give or take, from two eras of persecution in the 16th and 17th Centuries. I returned home to check Witch Craze, and Osnabruck never made it into the index. It's numbers of dead are not included, though it is common knowledge to anyone who visits the tourist center. Huh? What else was left out? Nor does Barstow adequately plumb the numbers who were tortured and maimed and then released, or those who died in custody. She does not draw a line from the witch persecutions to the rise of the legal profession. We know that women were targeted for political and sexist reasons, but Barstow does not go into detail about who the male witches were: were they shamans, convenient scapegoats for natural disasters, homosexuals, or political enemies of the nobility? Don't know. I await a book which discusses the intersection of European pagan life and the witch craze. I believe that while Europe's women may not have been sorcerers, they, and small town folk in general, certainly were among the last people of the continent who maintained the pagan folk traditions of pre-Christian Europe. Traditionally, throughout native cultures, men are first to shed their traditional ways, usually for pragmatic economic reasons, while rural women carry the rituals on: though food preparation, childcare and healthcare methods, costuming, commemorating holidays, and so on. Is there some corollary there between native European culture as practiced by householders and the witch craze? Not mentioned, and doesn't have to be. But to my mind, it is an incomplete work that doesn't mention the collision of historical folk culture with the dominant christian culture and how it effected or affected the persecution of women. Yet Witch Craze is an important book to read and own. Barstow's single most important contribution, I believe, is to paint a picture of how women and men would have reacted to 500 years of mostly female persecution--the resulting fragmentation of society, the housewifeization of women, the entrenchment of ageism, and the suspicion and fear of self-directed mysticism and spirituality--these are the legacies of the Witch Craze that imprint us all still.

Horrible Representation of History:
I had to pick a book to do for History. I read this book and it seemed okay. Then I sat and thought about how it was so against men. How it showed men being the accusers more than women, when in fact, it was almost the opposite. I don't recommend this book to anyone. It gives you somewhat of an overview as to what took place during the witch trials in Europe, but take it serioulsy. The facts are seriously distorted.

Witchcraze:
I read a borrowed copy of this book, and have desired to own it myself for months. This book is incredible. That is why I am here now. I just bought it. I think the reader reviews, for and against, speak loudly in favor of this book. This material will strike raw nerves. I can hardly wait to read it again. Ms. Barstow's work is excellent. I plan to buy other works by her. Never has a book on this subject been so meticulously documented and supported with research as this one has. I want to hear everything that this woman has to say.

Poor logic and scholarship in an attractive package:
As some previous reviews have noted, Barstow's nook is easy to read. Unfortunately, that is about all that can be said in its favor. More scholarly books may be a little "drier," but they are also MORE RELIABLE. Barstow's argument that misogyny is solely responsible for witch trials does not hold up well when examining the evidence she presents; another reviwer has already noted that she ignores Iceland simply because it doesn't fit into her theory. She doesn't seem to acknowledge that while misogyny helped set up the mindset of witch-hunting, it doesn't explain everything. Were the Irish of the 17th century so much less misogynistic than the Scots? Hardly---yet Ireland has only a handful of witchcraft cases, Scotland thousands. Hmmm..perhaps misogyny was ony *part* of the picture! But Barstow's theory doesn't account for that possibility, so she ignores it. Barstow does not distinguish between "sex-specific" and "sex-related" accusations. In other words, gender may be a key contributing factor, but not the ONLY factor. If she wants a woman-hunt, why not look at scolding or infanticide trials?(crimes that could, by definition, ONLY be perpetrated by females.) I suspect the answer is that such crimes are not "sexy," nor could she pass off her work as scholarship in those fields. But there is such a keen interest in this topic that she can use her gifts as a writer (it *is* quite readable) to fool her readers into thinking this is good scholarship. Look *carefully* at the way she presents her evidence and you will start to see the holes in her approach...how does she account for the differences amongst the rates of witch trials in culturally similar countries? How does she account for the fact that witch trials in England, for example, were so spotty? According to her argument, they should have neatly risen and fallen in accordance with the waxing and waning of misogyny. Was the 18th century really so much less "misogynistic" than the 16th? As an historian working in this timeframe, I can't see how she could possibly make sucha claim! Perhaps the greatest crime in this approach is that it lulls us into a false sense of security about the witch-hunting mentality. We need to understand how times of social tension can turn other factors (misogyny, religious fear, etc.) into a witchhunt, By making it simple, she actually makes it arder for us to understand how such hunts could occur. If you are hungry for information about the witch trials, please avoid this book, as slick and sexy as it is. I wouldn't ever give it to my university students to read, nor to any interested reader.