The Book Of Magic: From Antiquity To The Enlightenment

"If you’re looking for an encyclopedia of tricks, The Book of Magic might not give you much, but if you’re hoping to trace how magic has been defined and perceived, editor Brian Copenhaver has you covered. The Roman writer Pliny called magic “The Most Fraudulent of the Arts”; many in the early Renaissance both believed and feared it. This collection, nearly 600 pages of increasingly interconnected extracts, provides some thoughtful insight and covers an impressive scope (rites in Fire Temples, how to make a golem, the usual) on a subject that keeps revealing new sides just like magic."