Malcolm Gaskill Bücher

An Hexenbüchern herrscht kein Mangel. Aber dieses hier ist anders: Weder überschüttet es die LeserInnen mit der Fülle aller Details eines Wahngebäudes und damit, wie ein solcher Wahn in einem Dorf oder in einer Generation der deutschen Geschichte wütete, und wie er immer unbegreiflicher wird, je näher man ihn anschaut. Noch schiebt dieses Buch die Schuld an der rasenden sozialen Gewalt auf irgendeine flotte Erklärung wie Misogynie oder die Kleine Eiszeit. Der englische Historiker Malcolm Gaskill hat den Mut, Hexenwahn und Hexenverfolgung als ein verbreitetes Phantasma der abendländisch-christlichen Kultur zu verstehen, das nicht, nicht einmal wohlmeinend, unterdrückt werden konnte, und von dem Europa gewissermaßen weltlich erlöst werden musste. Aber es ist noch nicht aus der Welt und erhebt gelegentlich weiter das hässliche Antlitz.

Between Two Worlds( How the English Became Americans) <> Hardcover <> MalcolmGaskill <> BasicBooks(AZ)

This book delves into the cultural contexts surrounding law-breaking and criminal prosecution in England from 1550 to 1750. It examines how societal norms, values, and perceptions of crime evolved during this period, shedding light on the relationship between crime and culture. By analyzing historical cases and legal practices, the author reveals the complexities of justice and societal response to transgressions, providing a nuanced understanding of how crime was viewed and dealt with in early modern England.

One of the last criminal trials using the 1735 Witchcraft Act was, improbably, in London in 1944. The accused was Helen Duncan, a middle-aged Scotswoman. This is her extraordinary story. Helen Duncan - known since childhood as 'Hellish Nell', for her uncontainable nature - was one of the most popular mediums of the twentieth century, holding seances around the country where she was believed to manifest the spirits of the dead. What happens when we die? It was the question of the age for a generation which had endured one world war and now was living through another. Mrs Duncan's seances offered an answer. But when she started foretelling naval disasters, she also attracted the unwelcome attention of the secret service. And so just weeks before the Normandy landings, absurdly, anachronistically, she was prosecuted for witchcraft and jailed. Was Nell a conjurer, a martyr or a security risk? Hellish Nell was first published in 2001 to widespread acclaim. It remains in this revised edition a fascinating window into the unsettled spiritual and psychological mood of the times: a sensational tale of spectacle, credulity and cruelty, and of Britain's last witch.

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'The most chilling witch-hunt in English history ... fascinating' Independent on Sunday

By the spring of 1645, civil war had exacted a terrible toll on England. Disease, hunger, anxiety and lawlessness were rife, and belief in the supernatural was commonplace. In Essex, two gentlemen began interrogating women suspected of witchcraft. This study charts the grisly careers of ‘Witchfinder General†Matthew Hopkins and John Stearne, and reveals how religious bigotry and the superstitious fears of ordinary people unleashed the most brutal witch-hunt in English history. Off-mint.

The dark, compelling history of a colonial witch-hunt, from the author of Witchfinders In the frontier town of Springfield in 1651, peculiar things begin to happen. Precious food spoils, livestock ails and property vanishes. Children sicken and die. As tensions rise, rumours spread of witches and heretics, and the community becomes tangled in a web of spite, distrust and denunciation. The finger of suspicion falls on a young couple struggling to make a home and feed their children- Hugh Parsons the irascible brickmaker and his troubled wife, Mary. It will be their downfall. The Ruin of All Witches tells the dark, real-life folktale of witch-hunting in a remote Massachusetts plantation. These were the turbulent beginnings of colonial America, when English settlers' dreams of founding a 'city on a hill', gave way to paranoia and terror, enmity and rage. Drawing on uniquely rich source material, Malcolm Gaskill brings to life a New World existence steeped in the divine and the diabolic, in curses and enchantments, and precariously balanced between life and death. Through the gripping micro-history of a family tragedy, we glimpse an entire society caught in agonized transition between supernatural obsessions and the age of enlightenment. We see, in short, the birth of the modern world.