A COSMOPOLITAN LAWYER: JUST SOME READINGS I HAVE ENJOYED LATELY

First, this blog replaces my previous blog, thecosmoplitanlawyerblogspot.com . Second, unlike that earlier blog, the present one is primarily meant as a record of my readings. It is not meant to suggest that others will be or should be interested in what I read. And third, in a sense, it is a public diary of one who is an alien in his own American culture. A person who feels at home just about anywhere, except in his birthplace . . . America.

Sunday, February 23, 2014

THE DEVIL MADE THEM DO IT!

Brian P. Levack, The Devil Within: Possession and Exorcism in the Christian West (New Haven & London: Yale U. Press, 2013) (From the bookjacket: "In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, thousands of Europeans were thought to be possessed by demons. In response to their horrifying symptoms--violent convulsions, displays of preternatural strength, vomiting of foreign objects, displaying contempt for sacred objects and others--exorcists were summoned to expel the evil spirits from victims' bodies. This compelling book focuses on possession and exorcism in the Reformation period, but also reaches back to the fifteen century and forward to our own times.").