About Me

Alan Macfarlane - Witchcraft in Tudor and Stuart Essex (137.0 Kb)

Cover of Alan Macfarlane's Book Witchcraft in Tudor and Stuart EssexBook downloads: 409
This paper will assume a knowledge of the historical background to witchcraft prosecutions in sixteenth- and seventeenth - century England. (The best general studies of English witchcraft are Ewen, 1929, and Notestein, 1911.) It will also assume a general knowledge of current anthropological interpretations of witchcraft and sorcery. Its more general aim is to show by a concrete example the way in which the disciplines of history and social anthropology may benefit each other.There are many topics that, like witchcraft, need... More >>>Note that, unfortunately, not all my books can be downloaded due to the restrictions of copyright. However, most of the books on this site do not have copyright restrictions. If you find any copyright violation, please contact me at . I am very attentive to the issue of copyright and try to avoid any violations, but on the other hand to help all fans of magic to get access to information.
Download All Books
If you are having difficulty downloading books, or you are looking for a book that is not on the site (but maybe it is in my home library), please write me a email to and I will try to help, I can send the book by e-mail
Donate Cryptocurrency
Bitcoin (BTC Network) Address:15St4kjc9sq1q34Tah5ZE3upEK3FZdvS7t
Etherium (ETH-ERC20) Address:0x90c9d66cd07efa5c413551cfd5c2ce03c986b143

darkbooks.org began in early 2008 I am happy to donate my time to providing you this resource, I would also like to note, that, although I try, I do not always have enough time to deal with the site, including, unfortunately, I do not always have time to answer all letters, because I have to earn money for a living. If you can financially help me, it would free me from the worries of earning money for living, perhaps partially, but ideally completely, then all 100% of my time could be devoted to the site. Also I do pay monthly web server/files storage and hosting costs to keep this site on the air. Please consider making a donation to help me continue this activity and devote more time to it or at least offset the cost of paying for storage/hosting. Even a small contribution helps!

Category 1:  Love and Sex Magic
Category 2:  Wicca and Witchcraft
Category 3: 
Author:      Alan Macfarlane
Format:      eBook
This paper will assume a knowledge of the historical background to witchcraft prosecutions in sixteenth- and seventeenth - century England. (The best general studies of English witchcraft are Ewen, 1929, and Notestein, 1911.) It will also assume a general knowledge of current anthropological interpretations of witchcraft and sorcery. Its more general aim is to show by a concrete example the way in which the disciplines of history and social anthropology may benefit each other.

There are many topics that, like witchcraft, need serious investigation by the historian of pre-industrial England equipped with contemporary anthropological ideas. An exchange of ideas would also benefit anthropologists. Historical material provides information which is different from and often more extensive than that used by anthropologists. For example, the following account of Essex witchcraft is based on over 700 cases of witchcraft in one county in England over a period of 120 years. This is a far greater number than has ever been assembled by an anthropologist. The historian also has the advantage of being able to study change in beliefs. He is able to watch the rise and decline of accusations and may seek to correlate such changes with other contemporary movements. He is able to recognize that witchcraft accusations may be a far more radical and disruptive force than they sometimes appear in anthropological analysis.

About Author:

Alan Donald James Macfarlane FBA FRHistS (born 20 December 1941 in Shillong, Meghalaya, India) is an anthropologist and historian and a Professor Emeritus of King's College, Cambridge. He is the author or editor of 20 books and numerous articles on the anthropology and history of England, Nepal, Japan and China.[1] He has focused on comparative study of the origins and nature of the modern world. In recent years he has become increasingly interested in the use of visual material in teaching and research. He is a Fellow of the British Academy and the Royal Historical Society.

Macfarlane has published extensively on English history, advancing the idea that many traits of so-called "modern society" appeared in England long before the period of modernity as defined by historians, such as Lawrence Stone. Drawing loosely on work by Max Weber, Macfarlane has contrasted the defining characteristics of modern and traditional society. His 1987 book The Culture of Capitalism is a non-deterministic study of the emergence of modernity and capitalism in Western Europe. Two further books, The Origins of English Individualism (1978) and Marriage and Love in England (1986), explore the way English family institutions and social life emerged distinctly from continental European institutions and experiences.

During the 1990s, Macfarlane was invited to lecture in Japan, initiating a period of research into the distinctive emergence of modernity in Japan by contrast to England and Europe. 1997's The Savage Wars of Peace returned to Macfarlane's early interest in Malthus and demographics, comparing the modernity experiences of England and Japan. The book argues that England and Japan, both relatively large but non-remote islands, were each positioned to develop an autonomous culture while still profiting from nearby continental influence. Through different means, both Japan and England overcame the Malthusian trap, keeping birth and mortality rates under control, thus providing a demographic impetus for the rise of capitalism and prosperity.

Macfarlane's first major publication, in 1970, was Witchcraft in Tudor and Stuart England, a historical study of the conditions that gave rise to English witchcraft beliefs. His approach drew on the work of classic functionalist anthropologists Edward Evans-Pritchard and Lucy Mair. Also in 1970, Macfarlane published The Family Life of Ralph Josselin, a study of the diary of a famous seventeenth century clergyman. His approach here, exploring the emotions, fears and relationships of an individual to attempt a historical study of private life in seventeenth century England, was reminiscent of the Annales School.

Macfarlane has undertaken several periods of ethnographic field research, the first of these a period in Nepal with the Gurung people. He used this period as the foundation of a 1976 study, Resources and Population a Malthusian analysis of Gurung responses to scarce resources and an expanding population. Following Malthus' demographic principles, Macfarlane warned that the Gurung might experience a 'population check' in coming decades.

Macfarlane's work on modernity acknowledges his Enlightenment roots.[citation needed] His Riddle of the Modern World (2000) and Making of the Modern World (2001) are contributions to the field of history of ideas, addressing the work of Montesquieu, Adam Smith, Alexis de Tocqueville, Ernest Gellner, Yukichi Fukuzawa and Frederic Maitland.

Another strand in his work addresses the role of particular inventions in transforming history. The Glass Bathyscaphe: How Glass Changed the World (2002), co-authored with Gerry Martin, discusses how the invention and use of glass facilitated European dominion overseas. Macfarlane and his mother Iris co-wrote Green Gold: The Empire of Tea (2003), presenting the thesis that tea contributed to English prosperity, preventing epidemics by requiring the boiling of water and by promoting antibiotic effects.

2005's Letters to Lily distils Macfarlane's reflections on a life of research, as addressed to his granddaughter Lily Bee. As a non-academic work it brought Macfarlane to the attention of a wider, non-scholarly audience.

Macfarlane's work has been widely read and referenced by his contemporaries.[citation needed] Critics have challenged the role he ascribes to English institutions in the establishment of modernity, and his moral relativism as a champion of modernity who nonetheless affirms the validity of non-Western institutions.

Together with Mark Turin, Macfarlane established the Digital Himalaya Project in December 2000 and now serves as Chairman of the Executive Board of the World Oral Literature Project. He is also a co-editor of The Fortnightly Review's "new series" online.

SOurce: wiki