The Devil: A Very Short Introduction

ISBN-13: 9780199580996 / Angielski / Miękka / 2012 / 144 str.

Darren Oldridge

Opis

The Devil has fascinated Christians since the time of the New Testament, and inspired many haunting works of art. This Very Short Introduction looks at the Devil in the history of ideas and in the lives of real people. Darren Oldridge shows us that the Devil is an important figure in western history--a richly complex and contradictory one. Oldridge focuses on three main themes: the idea of the Devil being integral to western thought from the early Middle Ages to the beginnings of modernity; the belief that the Devil represents the mirror image of goodness; and the multiplicity and instability of ideas about the Devil. Oldridge concludes by exploring "demonological" ways of thinking in our own time, including allegations of "satanic ritual abuse."

Recenzje

In this densely researched and drily elegant book, Satan is pursued through Augustine, Marlowe, Milton, Shelley, Blake, Goethe, Ambrose Bierce, Auden and CS Lewis's Screwtape, tales of self-mortification and witch-hunting, painting and the cinema.

O autorze

Darren Oldridge is a Senior Lecturer in History at the University of Worcester. For ten years his research and teaching has focused on the Devil, witchcraft and the concept of evil. He is the author the expanded second edition of The Witchcraft Reader (Routledge 2008), and Strange Histories (Routledge 2005).