The Routledge History of the Devil in the Western Tradition

1. Auflage 2025
ISBN: 978-0-367-56142-0
Verlag: Routledge

Buch, Englisch, 598 Seiten, Format (B × H): 175 mm x 250 mm, Gewicht: 1200 g

Reihe: Routledge Histories

Covering a period of 2000 years, this book offers an interdisciplinary exploration of the devil's role in the Western tradition and draws from history, religion, art, literature, media studies, and anthropology to provide a multifaceted view of the devil over time.

The Routledge History of the Devil in the Western Tradition examines topics such as the devil's scriptural origins, medieval development, and role in witch-hunting and possession cases, as well as the influence of the demonic on contemporary issues like terrorism, political polarisation, and digital culture. Collectively, this volume demonstrates that the demonological imagination has served as part of the glue holding Western societies together. While contexts, misfortunes, and anxieties have shifted according to time and place, many of the dynamics that underlie the devil’s construction and detection have important continuities. This book, then, provides an innovative history of the anti-West—the West as seen through its anxieties, fears, and attempts to define and police itself and its boundaries.

With contributions from 28 leading scholars in the field, this volume is of interest to all students and scholars of the devil in the Western world.

Zielgruppe

Postgraduate and Undergraduate Advanced

Autoren/Hrsg.

Raiswell, Richard

Brock, Michelle D.

Winter, David R.

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Weltgeschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Alte Geschichte & Archäologie Mittelalterliche, neuzeitliche Archäologie (Europa)
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Europäische Geschichte

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Introduction

1: Satan in Biblical Literature

Justin Jeffcoat Schedtler

2: The Myth of the Devil in the Early Church

Archie T. Wright

3: Experiences of Evil: The Devil in the Early Middle Ages

Peter Dendle

4: The Devil Theorised and Rationalised

Christopher S. Mackay

5: Devils, Community and its Boundaries

Michael D. Bailey

6: Placing Satan

Eileen Gardiner

7: The Devil’s Minions

David R. Winter

8: Satan and the Divine Plan: Politics, the Devil and the End of Days

Arthur H. Williamson

9: Producing Devil Knowledge: Experience, Theory and Evidence

Richard Raiswell

10: Communicating the Devil

Marion Gibson

11: Devil Finders

Jan Machielsen

12: Rituals of Contamination, Purification and Eradication

Ismael del Olmo

13: The Devil and Statecraft

Gary K. Waite

14: Satan, Sex and Gender in Early Modern Europe

Erika Gasser

15: Seeing Satan

Linda C. Hults

16: The Devil and Colonialism

Jutta Wimmler

17: “Evil and desirable”: Gothic Inversion and the Satanic Monster in 18th- and 19th-Century Fiction

Miranda Corcoran

18: The Devil, Protest and the Age of Revolution

Per Faxneld

19: The Devil and War, 1600-1920

David R. Lawrence

20: Devil, Temptation, Conscience, Emotion

Charlotte-Rose Millar

21: Conjuring the Devil: The Cinematic Satan, 1899-2020

W. Scott Poole

22: Humanising the Devil, c. 1850-2000

Karl Bell

23: The Emergence of a Satan Problem

Bill Ellis

24: Communities, Purity and Conspiracy

Sarah Hughes

25: Demons, Missionaries and Migrants

Johanneke Kroesbergen-Kamps

26: The Digital Devil

Philip L. Frana

27: Into the 21st Century

Robert L. Ivie

Epilogue

Über Autor(innen)

Richard Raiswell is Professor of History at the University of Prince Edward Island, Canada. He has published works on demon possession, proof in witchcraft cases, rhetoric and demonism, and demonism and colonialism. His most recent book is The Medieval Devil: A Reader (trans. and ed. with David Winter, 2022).

Michelle D. Brock is Professor of History at Washington and Lee University, USA. She has published works on witchcraft and demonology, religious identity, and women and gender in early modern Scotland. Her most recent book is Plagues of the Heart: Crisis and Covenanting in a Seventeenth-Century Scottish Town (2024).

David R. Winter is Professor of History at Brandon University, Canada. His books include The Llanthony Stories (2021) and The Medieval Devil: A Reader (trans. and ed. with Richard Raiswell 2022). He is currently working on a translation of 16th-century Icelandic bishop Oddur Einarsson’s Descriptio qualiscunque Islandiae.