At forty-three-years and change, I finally asked somebody for an autograph. I think I managed to do it without gushing too much. (Well. Maybe minor gushing.)
That was how I concluded my interview with Professor Ronald Hutton, Head of the School of Humanities at University of Bristol and Professor of History. For those unfamiliar with the early modern witch hunts (and the evolution of the concept of the 'witch' in general), I strongly recommend Prof. Hutton's most recent book, The Witch: A History of Fear from Ancient Times to the Present. I've loved Prof. Hutton's books for several years now, so when I saw there was an audio book version of this along with the printed book -- whelp, I was able to devour that beast between my evening reading and my walking commute in no time. I'm ready to re-read again, actually.
But I may go back to another one of Professor Hutton's books. Interviewing historians for Familiar Shapes makes me want to re-read The Triumph of the Moon: A History of Modern Pagan Witchcraft which, in many ways, takes up from where The Witch leaves off. As my most recent interviews have demonstrated: the history of magic and witchcraft isn't isolated to early modern England: it spans epochs, is global, and continues to evolve to this day.
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