Nigel Cawthorne: Witches - History of a Persecution

From the back of the book:

Between 1450 and 1750, more than 100,000 people-mainly women-in Europe and colonial America were prosecuted for practising harmful magic and worshipping the devil. Tens of thousands were executed, often after being subjected to bestial tortures.
Witches examines this persecution and the religious hysteria which inspired it, tracing its root back to the savage suppression of the heretical Waldensian sect by the Catholic Church. With the creation of the Inquistion, and the publication of the book Malleus Maleficarum, the ‘Witchfinders’ Bible’, the craze soon spread across Europe and reached as far as the United States where, despite the infamy of the Salem Witch Trials, it was soon dismissed by a more rational population.
Although witch trial continued in Scotland until 1727, Norway until 1760 and Hungary until 1777, the growth of scientific reason gradually gained ground from the witch hunters.

From this blurb I expected to read a book that examined the religious-political foundations of the witch hunting craze and perhaps even speculated on the social psychology that would allow such a movement to flourish. But this book did not take that path.
Instead it contains a number of court reports, torture records, letters and other written material from the time to present the general mood of the period and to examine a few specific cases.
Details of how the system worked from accusation through to conviction were interesting but they are presented with only the most superficial examination. It’s all facts and figures with no real attempt to answer the question of why this happened when it did. And that is where I think this book falls down.
There is nothing wrong with straight factual accounts, I understand their importance for the historical record, but my reading of the blurb had me expecting deeper insight into the time. This wasn’t delivered and the result was a book that I found rather too dry for my tastes, dare I say dull.
While this book does provide an overview of the witch hunts during a three hundred year period, it was not quite what I expected. A good starting place for an investigation of the witch hunting phenomena but only a starting place.-Lynn