A valuable resource for planning a magical itinerary—or exploring the landscape of witchcraft from the couch.
A historian travels far beyond Salem in search of lingering marks of witchcraft’s past.
In Witches, Sluts, Feminists (2017), Sollée, a writer and curator who teaches gender studies at the New School, offered a quick introduction to centuries of misogyny and the ways in which superficially distinct categories of womanhood overlap. In her latest book, she takes readers on a tour of physical sites with witchy pasts in Europe, the U.K., Ireland, and the U.S. The author provides historical and geographic specificity that is often elided and obscured in popular depictions of witchcraft—including those by self-described witches. Some locales in the book have turned their connections with witchcraft into kitschy pastiches of shops and attractions, but even in those places, Sollée digs into the history that lies beneath the tourist trap. The author’s trip to Germany is emblematic of her journey as a whole. When she climbed the highest peak in the Harz Mountains, she was visiting a place sacred to Saxon pagans, the setting for a diabolical orgy in Goethe’s Faust, and the site of an annual gathering of contemporary witches. In Thale, Sollée went to a theme park where she saw “statues of a naked Devil and witch that children were treating like jungle gyms.” The medieval village of Quedlinburg offers a quiet contrast to the sensational entertainments of Thale, but this storybook town executed so many accused witches that it’s the source for the oft-repeated and ahistorical suggestion that millions of women died during the witch hunts of the early modern era. This is clearly written for a general audience, but Sollée’s judicious use of scholarly sources adds weight to the text and serves as a guide to readers who want to learn more.
A valuable resource for planning a magical itinerary—or exploring the landscape of witchcraft from the couch.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-57863-699-0
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Red Wheel/Weiser
Review Posted Online: July 21, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2020
Worthwhile reference stuffed with facts and illustrations.
A compendium of charts, time lines, lists and illustrations to accompany study of the Bible.
This visually appealing resource provides a wide array of illustrative and textually concise references, beginning with three sets of charts covering the Bible as a whole, the Old Testament and the New Testament. These charts cover such topics as biblical weights and measures, feasts and holidays and the 12 disciples. Most of the charts use a variety of illustrative techniques to convey lessons and provide visual interest. A worthwhile example is “How We Got the Bible,” which provides a time line of translation history, comparisons of canons among faiths and portraits of important figures in biblical translation, such as Jerome and John Wycliffe. The book then presents a section of maps, followed by diagrams to conceptualize such structures as Noah’s Ark and Solomon’s Temple. Finally, a section on Christianity, cults and other religions describes key aspects of history and doctrine for certain Christian sects and other faith traditions. Overall, the authors take a traditionalist, conservative approach. For instance, they list Moses as the author of the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Hebrew Bible) without making mention of claims to the contrary. When comparing various Christian sects and world religions, the emphasis is on doctrine and orthodox theology. Some chapters, however, may not completely align with the needs of Catholic and Orthodox churches. But the authors’ leanings are muted enough and do not detract from the work’s usefulness. As a resource, it’s well organized, inviting and visually stimulating. Even the most seasoned reader will learn something while browsing.
Worthwhile reference stuffed with facts and illustrations.Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2005
ISBN: 978-1-5963-6022-8
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
This a book of earlier, philosophical essays concerned with the essential "absurdity" of life and the concept that- to overcome the strong tendency to suicide in every thoughtful man-one must accept life on its own terms with its values of revolt, liberty and passion. A dreary thesis- derived from and distorting the beliefs of the founders of existentialism, Jaspers, Heldegger and Kierkegaard, etc., the point of view seems peculiarly outmoded. It is based on the experience of war and the resistance, liberally laced with Andre Gide's excessive intellectualism. The younger existentialists such as Sartre and Camus, with their gift for the terse novel or intense drama, seem to have omitted from their philosophy all the deep religiosity which permeates the work of the great existentialist thinkers. This contributes to a basic lack of vitality in themselves, in these essays, and ten years after the war Camus seems unaware that the life force has healed old wounds... Largely for avant garde aesthetes and his special coterie.
Pub Date: Sept. 26, 1955
ISBN: 0679733736
Page Count: 228
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1955
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