This substantial volume contains twenty chapters covering the period from ancient Egypt to the present, with a framing “Introduction” by the editor, David J. Collins, SJ. He draws attention to the problematics of the subject area: the difficulty in defining the “West” (as ancient Egypt and the ancient Near East, as well as the colonial Dutch East Indies, are included in the book); arguments concerning periodization and continuities or discontinuities attendant upon such temporal schemata; the existence of other works that traverse some of the same territory, particularly Bengt Ankarloo and Stuart Clark's six-volume set from 1999–2002; and the general elusiveness of both magic and witchcraft as topics for research. Part 1, “Antiquity,” consists of Daniel Schwemer's “The Ancient Near East,” Friedhelm Hoffman's “Ancient Egypt,” and Kimberly B. Stratton's “Early Greco-Roman Antiquity,” all highly competent essays illustrated with appropriate images. Part 2, “The Early Latin West,” commences with Kyle A. Fraser's “Roman Antiquity: The Imperial Period” and proceeds to Maijastina Kahlos's “The Early Church,” and Yitzhak Hen's “The Early Medieval West.” These chapters are especially important because they introduce the tensions between Christianity and magical practice, while acknowledging that the division of the two was far from clear. Kahlos, for example, discusses Christianity as magic and Origen and Celsus's debate on the power of names, and Hen introduces the vexed status of pagan beliefs and practices during the conversion of the “barbarians” (focusing on the tantalizing Carolingian Indiculus superstitionum et paganiarum).

Part 3, “Parallel Traditions,” illustrates some of the issues that arise due to the need to organize material for publication. The rationale for this section seems to be that the cultures discussed either are not Western and Christian, or they have a radically different attitude to magic, and so do not fit the unfolding historical schema of the volume. The three chapters, Alicia Walker's “Magic in Medieval Byzantium,” Travis Zadeh's “Magic, Marvel, and Miracle in Early Islamic Thought,” and Gideon Bohak's “Jewish Magic in the Middle Ages,” are among the most interesting and satisfying in the collection, with excellent illustrations of amulets and images depicting magical practices, divination bowls, and various other material culture items that render the somewhat cerebral discussions immediate and part of a lived reality for people of those cultures and times. Bohak's piece especially delights, beginning as it does with the (enormously challenging, yet historically accurate) statement: “For students of medieval Christian magic, the most striking feature of medieval Jewish magic is that within the Jewish community it was never considered heretical or diabolical” (268). The vigor of Maimonides's incisive critique of magic notwithstanding, Jewish magic (including rituals from the First and Second Temples, and mystical trends like kabbalah) flourished in the medieval era; Bohak's discussion of its intersections with both Christianity and Islam is also valuable.

Part 4, “Old Europe,” contains four essays covering the period from the eleventh to the eighteenth centuries. Catherine Rider's “Common Magic” discusses charms and love magic, and interrogates what can be known of the practices of ordinary people from witch trial documents and other sources. Editor Collins's “Learned Magic” and Michael D. Bailey's “Diabolical Magic” cover intellectual traditions from the same period, including learned medieval clerics and Renaissance Humanists, and Catholic and Protestant reactions. The last chapter, Helen Parish's “Magic and Priestcraft: Reformers and Reformation,” rounds out this section with a study of anti-Catholic ideas in Protestant notions of magic and witchcraft.

Part 5, “Colonial Encounters,” moves from Europe and the literal “West” to the colonial domains of the “New World,” in which Europeans encountered peoples with religious and magical traditions that expanded their worldview mentally as much as the global voyages had expanded their geographical knowledge. Louise M. Burkhart's “Spain and Mexico” and Richard Godbeer's “Folk Magic in British North America” are both solid contributions, but treat only a miniscule amount of the magical traditions of the Americas and surrounding areas, and Margaret J. Wiener's “Colonial Magic: The Dutch East Indies” steps outside of the “West” and draws attention to the vast number of Asian and Pacific cultures with magical and witchcraft traditions that are excluded (and if a “Western” connection is all that's required, leaving out the Philippines and Goa, Maori and Aboriginal magic from New Zealand and Australia, and the French Polynesian colonies is not explained or justified in any way).

Part 6, “The Modern West,” contains Owen Davies's “Magic in Common and Legal Perspectives,” which considers the history of legal prosecutions of practitioners of magic, divination, folk medicine, and other non-religious, non-rational crafts. The remaining three chapters are David Allen Harvey's “Elite Magic in the Nineteenth Century” (which treats Martinism, Rosicrucianism, Freemasonry, the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, and so on), Raquel Romberg's “Magic in the Postcolonial Americas” (which discusses the various blendings of African religion with Catholicism, including Vodun, Santería, and Candomblé), and Sabina Magliocco's “New Age and Neopagan Magic” (which brings the story up to date with contemporary Europe and European-derived countries).

In a volume of this size, there are inevitable omissions and questions that arise regarding the topics that certain authors have chosen to emphasize at the expense of equally interesting material that points in different directions or mixes up the overarching narrative. Notwithstanding, this volume is well constructed, thoughtful, and interesting, with contributing authors of high scholarly standing. It is recommended to readers interested in magic and witchcraft, and their close relatives—religion and esotericism—across a broad historical and geographical sweep.