The witch came to prominence—and often a painful death—in early modern Europe, yet her origins are much more geographically diverse and historically deep. In this landmark book, Ronald Hutton traces witchcraft from the ancient world to the early-modern stake.
This book sets the notorious European witch trials in the widest and deepest possible perspective and traces the major historiographical developments of witchcraft. Hutton, a renowned expert on ancient, medieval, and modern paganism and witchcraft beliefs, combines Anglo-American and continental scholarly approaches to examine attitudes on witchcraft and the treatment of suspected witches across the world, including in Africa, the Middle East, South Asia, Australia, and North and South America, and from ancient pagan times to current interpretations. His fresh anthropological and ethnographical approach focuses on cultural inheritance and change while considering shamanism, folk religion, the range of witch trials, and how the fear of witchcraft might be eradicated.

Ronald Hutton is known for his colourful, provocative, and always exhaustively researched, studies on original subjects. This work is no exception: the first full-scale scholarly study of the only religion England has ever given the world, that of modern pagan witchcraft, which has now spread from English shores across four continents. Hutton examines the nature of that religion and its development, and offers a microhistory of attitudes to paganism, witchcraft, and magic in British society since 1800. Village cunning folk and Victorian ritual magicians, classicists and archaeologists, leaders of woodcraft and scouting movements, Freemasons and members of rural secret societies, all appear in the pages of this book. Also included are some of the leading figures of English literature, from the Romantic poets to W B Yeats, D H Lawrence, and Robert Graves, as well as the main personalities who have represented pagan witchcraft to the world since 1950.

Here is a book that brings witchcraft out of the shadows. The Triumph of the Moon is the first full-scale study of the only religion England has ever given the world--modern pagan witchcraft, otherwise known as wicca. Meticulously researched, it provides a thorough account of an ancient religion that has spread from English shores across four continents.
For centuries, pagan witchcraft has been linked with chilling images of blood rituals, ghostlike druids, and even human sacrifices. But while Robert Hutton explores this dark side of witchery, he stresses the positive, reminding us that devotion to art, the natural world, femininity, and the classical deities are also central to the practice of wicca. Indeed, the author shows how leading figures in English literature--W.B. Yeats, D.H. Lawrence, and Robert Graves, just to name a few--celebrated these positive aspects of the religion in their work, thereby softening the public perception of witchcraft in Victorian England. From cunning village folk to freemasons and from high magic to the black arts, Hutton chronicles the fascinating process by which actual wiccan practices evolved into what is now a viable modern religion. He also presents compelling biographies of wicca's principal figures, such as Gerald Gardner, who was inducted into a witch coven at the age of 53, and recorded many clandestine rituals and beliefs.
Ronald Hutton is known for his colorful, provocative, and always thoroughly researched studies on original subjects. This work is no exception. It will appeal to anyone interested in witchcraft, paganism and alternative religions.

The first in a pioneering two-volume account of Oliver Cromwell - one that provides a major new interpretation of one of the greatest figures in history
Oliver Cromwell - the only English commoner to become the Head of State - is one of the great figures of history.He was at once courageous and devout, devious and self-serving; as a parliamentarian, he confessed himself committed to reform, as a soldier he was bloodthirsty. Cromwell's writings and speeches surpass those of any other ruler of England before Victoria; and, for those seeking to understand him, he has been taken at his word.
In this major new work, Ronald Hutton untangles the facts from the fiction. Cromwell, discovering his devotion to god and cementing his puritan support base, quickly transformed from obscure provincial to military victor. At the end of the First English Civil War he was poised to take power. Hutton reveals a man who was both genuine in his faith and deliberate in his dishonesty - and uncovers the inner workings of the man who has puzzled biographers for centuries