![]() ![]() Michael Hunter situates the decline of magic between 16, within the areas of research in which he has built his career: the history of the early Royal Society, in particular that ‘Christian Virtuoso’ Robert Boyle, and the widespread fear of atheism in elite circles. Can the present work, which comes in at exactly 180 pages if we exclude the appendices and notes, live up to the praise and aspirations? This book undoubtedly makes an important contribution and fills in parts of the puzzle, but the last word on the decline of belief in witchcraft and magic remains to be written. ![]() ![]() That work was over 700 pages in length, though Thomas’s prose is so mesmerizing few readers will notice either its length or the passage of time. ![]() The former, of course, invokes Keith Thomas’s half-century-old Religion and the Decline of Magic (1971), one of the foundational texts for the study of early modern witchcraft. Both the title- The Decline of Magic-and the subtitle- Britain in the Enlightenment-promise sweeping panoramas. The work itself is not shy of ambition either. It ‘ompletely overhauls our view’, observes Ronald Hutton somewhat further down. The book ‘eserves to become another classic’, opines Peter Burke at the top of the front cover. ![]()
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