Product Description

Using case studies from the Middle Ages to the more recent past, this book presents for the first time a serious account of some of the most extraordinary occurrences of European history.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #115251 in Books
• Published on: 2006-11-17
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 216 pages

Review

'Darren Oldridge's fascinating study of witches, angels, werewolves, heretics, persecution, and justice is extraordinary because it is so contemporary, provocative, and insightful. His investigation reveals that our assumptions about the intolerance and absurd ideas of the past need to be critically re-examined if we are to deal with our own "strange" behavior in the present.' - Jack Zipes, University of Minnesota

'This book operates on the grand scale, braving topic after topic with courage and lucidity. it shows a canny and disturbing sense of the manner in which attitudes that the modern world dismisses as irrational and superstitious linger in modernity within different guises. It is a work which seeks to explain the past and unsettle the present; which is an exciting and valuable combination.' - Ronald Hutton, University of Bristol

'A fascinating and sympathetic exploration of the beliefs shared by educated as well as illiterate Europeans before the advent of the modern world Oldridge recaptures and makes sense of a mental world that has long since vanished.' - Brian P. Levack, University of Texas at Austin

'In his lively and slightly ironic account, Darren Oldridge ... finds nothing unreasonable in prosecuting horses, witches and wolfmen ... Strange Histories is more than an entertaining catalog of oddities ...' - Shepherd Express: Milwaukee

"Darren Oldridge's fascinating study of witches, angels, werewolves, heretics, persecution, and justice in the late medieval and Renaissance period is extraordinary because it is so contemporary, provocative, and insightful. By focusing on how reasonable and logical the belief systems of this historical period were, Oldridge compels readers to re-examine how we have arrogantly judged deeply held beliefs as superstitions and barbaric. Moreover, he suggests that we take a closer look at our own mores, values, and behaviors that are 'strangely' not much different from those of the late medieval and Renaissance period. His historical and cultural anthropological investigation reveals that our assumptions about the intolerance and absurd ideas of the past need to be critically re-examined if we are to deal with our own 'strange' behavior in the present." - Jack Zipes, University of Minnesota

From the Back Cover

In 1458 a pig was hanged for murder in Burgundy. The French judge Henri Boguet described an apple possessed by demons in 1602. A few years later, Italian Jesuits tried to calculate the physical dimensions of hell.

Strange Histories presents a serious account of some of the most extraordinary occurrences of European and North American history and explains how they made sense to people living at the time.

Using case studies from the Middle Ages and the early modern period with some from the more recent past, this book provides fascinating insights into the world-view through the ages, and shows how such goings-on fitted in quite naturally with the "common sense" of the time. Explanations of these phenomena, riveting and ultimately rational, encourage further reflection on what really shapes our beliefs.

What made reasonable, educated men and women behave in ways that seem utterly nonsensical to us today? This question and many more are answered in the fascinating book.

About the Author
Darren Oldridge is a lecturer in history at University College Worcester. He is the editor of The WItchcraft Reader.

Customer Reviews

Are we smarter than people who lived 500 years ago ?
Only one good piece of advice; don't buy this book if you expect a collection of horror stories. It's a history of human intellectual behaviour and a study of the different ways we look at our surroundings, from the late 15th century until the 1700's.

In 1438 a pig was hanged for murder in Burgundy. The French judge Henri Boguet described an apple possessed by demons in 1602. A few years later, Italian Jesuits tried to calculate the physical dimensions of hell.

These and many other ideas from the late Middle Ages and the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries seem absurd today, but they made good sense to people at the time. This book explains how beliefs that are strange to us were once widely accepted. It sets out the intellectual world of men and women in the distant past, and shows how their assumptions and expectations allowed them to believe things that we cannot: that heresy and witchcraft posed a threat to society, that demons carried people through the air and that the dead occasionally walked away from their graves.

None of these ideas were mad. They simply reflected the belief system of the medieval and Renaissance world. In fact an understanding of the rational basis of beliefs that now seem absurd suggests that modern ideas may one day seem equally ridiculous.

The reason why I like this book so much is because it compels you to study your own way of thinking but you won't be able to do that without a sense of humor

A fascinating glimpse of the Medieval mind
This book explains with admirable lucidity the reasons for what seem to us nowadays bizarre beliefs, and shows that actually the beliefs that people held in medieval and early modern times were no stranger or more irrational than our own, according to their own understanding of reality.

If you want to understand why people believed in witchcraft, werewolves, the trying of animals for crimes, and other seemingly strange things, you should read this book. It is full of intriguing information, and makes these odd beliefs seem surprisingly rational, so that for instance you can even begin to understand why, in 1545, the people of Saint-Julien-de-Maurienne sued a plague of flies for destroying a vinyard. Any belief that the people of the past were more superstitious or credulous than we are is bound to be shaken when you consider such episodes as the recent furore over 'satanic abuse', where the reasons why people believed in this were more or less the same as the reasons why people believed the 'evidence' for witchcraft. Darren Oldridge's style of writing is clear and witty and can be understood by anyone. Reading it is a real eye-opener.

Engaging and fascinating
This piece reinforces what we should already know, but rarely act upon, and that is that one should evaluate the actions of people from previous eras through the social and moral perspective of their own times and not our own. it provides us with the "why" for doing this, not just the imperative.

And each case examined is utterly fascinating. I have been unable to put this book down. It is both entertaining and informative and I recommend it highly to anyone interested in general history or social analysis. It is clearly written (no turgid dredging of history) and makes the subject quite enjoyable.

Kudos to Darren Oldridge for giving us a piece to savor and from which we can learn a thing or two.