William G. Naphy

Book Review: Demon Lovers: Witchcraft, Sex, and the Crisis of Belief

the approaches taken by different contributors, are diverse. They state that the essays ‘illuminate particular terrains’ rather than ‘offer a coherent “map” of gender relations in Europe’ (1), but I was left thinking that a tighter focus (for example, on royal rule and noble families, as perhaps signalled by the theme of ‘privilege’) would have resulted in a more coherent volume. Surely we are now at a point in gender studies – where gender is not just used as a code-word for ‘women’, but stands for a complex system of social relations that can be examined from most sources – that ‘Gender and . . .’ books need to treat the second part of the title more critically.