Book review: Historical Dictionary Of Witchcraft by Michael Bailey
This book was written by an academic, and not a practicing witch, as is increasingly the custom. So he views the subject of witchcraft from without and not within, which is a better vantage point for most of us and helps us grasp the many twists and turns of an endlessly intriguing subject. Michael D. Bailey has been interested in European witchcraft ever since he was a student at Northwestern University, writing his dissertation and later his first book on the rise of witchcraft in latemedieval Europe and on one of the preeminent early authorities to write about witchcraft, the German Dominican Johannes Nider. He also studied medieval history in countries where the witch-hunts were most virulent,Germany and Switzerland. Since then, Dr. Bailey has taught at Bethany College, the University of Cincinnati, Saint Louis University, and currently at Iowa State University, where he continues to write on various aspects of the medieval period, sorcery, and witchcraft. For this historical dictionary, he has expanded his horizons substantially to bring in the wider world and the current period, which make the whole matter considerably more interesting and in some ways more comprehensible, or less, depending on one’s intellectual position. Jon Woronoff Series Editor
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