Fascinating interview with Michael D Bailey on the New Books Network, which shows how the whole stereotypical picture of witches as an organised force of the devil was born in the 1430s in the western European Alps, at least in part as a weapon of political struggle. And how even at the time there were people brave enough to scoff at it as nonsense.
The imagining of witchcraft as an organised force spread across Europe and beyond, to cause the death of many thousands of (mostly) women. And still has force today – thinking of the use of the word witch as a word of abuse of Julia Gillard and many other women in public life.
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