Witchcraze: A New History Of The European Witch Hunts by Anne Llewellyn Barstow presents an in-depth study of the mid-sixteenth and seventeenth century witch hunts that targeted European women as scapegoats of a downtrodden society. Barstow explores the history of the era and the events, which led to the horrific injustice ravaged against women of this period.

Barstow’s analysis of historical records of the European witch hunts reveals a male society that hated and feared women. Sadistic torture of women simply because they were women became the focus of a society struggling to overcome the burden of over-populated communities in which women outnumbered men. No woman was safe from scrutiny. The slightest provocation could lead to an accusation and trial. Widows who inherited property and women who appeared to have power were prime targets, as were older and poverty-stricken women who posed a possible burden to society.

Deeper probes of poorly kept (often incomplete) court records support the conclusion of an atrocious gender war that laid the stones of acceptance for centuries of mistreatment and violence against women. Barstow is the first scholar to uncover and bring to attention society’s role in acceptance of the negligent gruesome torture, often of a sexual nature, that took place in European courtrooms, often to serve the sadistic pleasures of the men in charge of the trials.

A retired professor of history, Barstow has presented the subject with honesty and integrity, unveiling the haunting secrets and buried historical accounts of the injustice placed upon so many innocents. Historians, economists, theologians, sociologists, women, and those interested in the witch hunt era will garnish new information from Barstow’s collection of missing pieces of a society gone over the edge. Barstow includes a generous, if not an overabundance of sited references to substantiate her account of the witch hunts.

Ann Newman is author of Images of America, Conway. Newman is founder of the Arkansas Writers Association, a professional organization established to promote the literature and work of Arkansas authors of all mediums.

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