ABSTRACT
This chapter explains the various ways in which the European witch-hunt has been studied in the past. It concentrates on the two great traditions, liberal and romantic, that have inspired many scholars to seek a deeper understanding of it. Both the liberal tradition, focuses on persecution and the romantic tradition, focuses on the witches' own experience, are alive and well in present scholarship, and have deep roots going back to the nineteenth century and beyond. Perhaps inevitably, some earlier scholars in these traditions took what can now be considered to be detours. And, because witchcraft and witch-hunting are topics of wide popular interest, some of these detours have fed into modern popular misconceptions. The chapter also comments on the origins of modern witchcraft imagery, and on the darker subject of witch-hunting today in non-Western societies. It explores the ways in which perspectives from other disciplines, notably anthropology and psychology, has enriched historical understanding and may do so further in future.
