The Cambridge History of Magic and Witchcraft in the West: From Antiquity to the Present

This book presents twenty chapters by experts in their fields, providing a thorough and interdisciplinary overview of the theory and practice of magic in the West. Its chronological scope extends from the Ancient Near East to twenty-first-century North America; its objects of analysis range from Persian curse tablets to US neo-paganism. For comparative purposes, the volume includes chapters on developments in the Jewish and Muslim worlds, evaluated not simply for what they contributed at various points to European notions of magic, but also as models of alternative development in ancient Mediterranean legacy. Similarly, the volume highlights the transformative and challenging encounters of Europeans with non-Europeans, regarding the practice of magic in both early modern colonization and more recent decolonization.

• Contains twenty chapters by twenty eminent specialists from a variety of disciplines
• Offers careful consideration of distinctively 'European' developments in light of different developments in the Greek, Jewish, and Muslim societies of the Mediterranean
• Examines how the dynamics of colonization and decolonization affected magical thought and practices among both colonizers and colonized