Witches, Witch-hunting and Women

Written by Silvia Federici

Narrated by J. Lee Craig

We are witnessing a new surge of interpersonal and institutional violence against women, including new witch hunts. This surge of violence has occurred alongside an expansion of capitalist social relations. In this new work that revisits some of the main themes of Caliban and the Witch, Silvia Federici examines the root causes of these developments and outlines the consequences for the women affected and their communities. She argues that, no less than the witch hunts in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Europe and the “New World,” this new war on women is a structural element of the new forms of capitalist accumulation. These processes are founded on the destruction of people’s most basic means of reproduction. Like at the dawn of capitalism, what we discover behind today’s violence against women are processes of enclosure, land dispossession, and the remolding of women’s reproductive activities and subjectivity.As well as an investigation into the causes of this new violence, the book is also a feminist call to arms. Federici’s work provides new ways of understanding the methods in which women are resisting victimization and offers a powerful reminder that reconstructing the memory of the past is crucial for the struggles of the present.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Post Hypnotic Press
• Release date: Aug 15, 2021
• ISBN: 9781772562101

Silvia Federici

Silvia Federici is a feminist writer, teacher, and militant. In 1972 she was cofounder of the International Feminist Collective that launched the Wages for Housework campaign. Her books include Caliban and the Witch; Re-enchanting the World; and Witches, Witch Hunting, and Women. She is a professor emerita at Hofstra University, where she taught in the social sciences. She worked as a teacher in Nigeria for many years and was also the cofounder of the Committee for Academic Freedom in Africa.

Reviews for Witches, Witch-hunting and Women

[Sophie Illingworth · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Excellent inspiring and totally horrifying book for an elder woman to read, but also totally comprehensible in this misogynistic, sexist, ageist, patriarchal, consumerist, colonial, abusive society. How ever the ideas and hope expressed has given ideas for paths to follow. As a 60 something women in the UK who has had 6years of her pension stolen by the current government. It proves the witch hunt is on 53000 over 50yrs women in the UK as well. Great book thank you

[Patricia Delfin · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Thank you for this information. Clear and to the point.

[David DeCorte · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A good addendum Federici's earlier work, "Caliban & The Witch." Not really covering any groundbreaking new territory in this work, but it serves to elaborate on and enrich that larger text.

[Princess Madeira · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

Silvia Federici is a garbage historian and her research is bad. I really wish she would pick up some of the more modern scholarship on witchcraft and realize her analysis doesn't work. I have immense political sympathy with her, but this ain't it.

[n · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Highly recommended! It was very saddening at times, but that made it all the more important to read about.