Chapter 1 The Early Modern Witch Craze Chapter 2 Explaining Witch Hunts: Sacrifice, Persecution, and Scapegoat Theories Chapter 3 Apocalyptic Crises: Pestilence, War, and Famine Chapter 4 A Discourse on Measures Chapter 5 Untangling Relationships Chapter 6 Shifting Enemies: Scapegoating, Victimology, and Collective Conflict Chapter 7 The Salem Witch Hunt: A Perfect Storm Chapter 8 Modern "Witch Hunts": More than a Metaphor?
Gary Jensen is a professor of sociology and religious studies at Vanderbilt University and has held faculty appointments at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill and the University of Arizona. He has published over sixty articles and chapters and authored, coauthored, or edited eight books on criminology. Jensen was installed as a fellow of the American Society of Criminology in 2001.The Path of the Devil was completed with support from the National Science Foundation and Vanderbilt University.
The Path of the Devil is an interdisciplinary marvel that bridges
academic discourses across social history, sociology and women's
studies. Systematically applying numerous sociological theories and
testing those theories with available data, Professor Jensen
demonstrates the complex set of conditions—local, political,
demographic, economic, and structural that foster witch hunts.
Across time, continent and village, The Path of the Devil
contextualizes a phenomena that has captured the popular
imagination and historical treatises and provides sobering evidence
that scapegoating and persecution of women are contemporary
phenomena that are contained on a local scale because the
conditions for widespread 'witch panics' have been lacking.
*Patricia MacCorquodale, University of Arizona*
The Path of the Devil is a highly interesting read that will come
to be viewed as the best sociological analysis of the early modern
witch-hunt... Jensen does a masterful job of telling an interesting
story while articulating and applying the principles of scientific
inquiry—including the application of quantitative and multivariate
analysis—to a topic that heretofore has mainly been approached by
relying on anecdotal observations. It offers one of the best
pedagogical lessons on the meaning and application of scientific
inquiry that I have seen in the social science literature.
*Darrell J. Steffensmeier, Pennsylvania State University*
One of the intellectual appeals of witchcraft as a subject of study
is that, unlike virtually all other behaviors designated as
deviant, the actions alleged did not—could not—have occurred. In
The Path of the Devil, Gary Jensen valiantly tackles issues that
have bedeviled a virtual battalion of scholars who have sought for
hundreds of years to explain the outbreak of witch persecutions and
prosecutions in Europe and in the American colonies. The Path of
the Devil is a very important contribution to witchcraft
scholarship and represents a tribute not only to the author, but
also to the discipline of sociology and it empirical methods.
*Contemporary Sociology*
Jensen's account is highly readable and thought-provoking, and
could prove a valuable addition to nonreligious courses as well,
such as political sociology—or perhaps even classical theory, given
the author's elaboration upon the meanings and applications of
functionalism as applied to witch hunts.
*Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, V. 47, No. 1*
Jensen provides a rich analytical account of witch hunts in the
West and expertly manages to combine various interdisciplinary
approaches to the study of witch hunts all in a single book....The
use of both qualitative and quantitative research techniques makse
it appealing in terms of its holistic approach to the topic,
rendering it perhaps one of the most complete accounts of witch
craze and colonial witch hunts in the United States.
*Feminist Teacher*
Gary Jensen has produced a fascinating sociological account of
early modern witch hunts, from the mid-15th through the early 18th
centuries, that has been long in the making but well worth the
wait. It is an important contribution that should be of interest to
students of deviance, social control, and collective behavior
within sociology, historians of witchcraft and witch hunts, and
both scholars and non-academics interested in witch hunts of more
recent times.
*David A. Snow, University of California, Irvine*
Jensen's book is a necessary corrective for overly facile
explanations of one of history's most puzzling episodes.
*American Historical Review*
The Path of the Devil would be ideal for graduate seminars in
deviance and control or collective behavior. . . . a masterful tour
de force that contributes to core concerns of sociology and speaks
to a variety of other disciplines as well. The Path of the Devil
manages to be interesting, interdisciplinary in its reach, and
uncompromisingly empirical all at the same time. It is an exemplar
of sociology at its best.
*American Journal of Sociology, September 2009*
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