Frica in Occident

Jean Delumeau studies the fears people shared in Western Europe. He covers the 14th to the 18th century. He asks who felt fear and what caused it. Plague and war shaped these fears. So did strife over faith and a lack of safety. Beliefs about Satan played a part, too. People feared those they thought served him. They saw witches, Jews, Turks and women as threats.

This book of history asks how people understood their world. It looks at death, anxiety and witchcraft. It also deals with rites, superstition and putting people to death.

Delumeau belongs to a French school of thought about history. Its members study how people thought in the past. He draws on economics and sociology. He also uses psychology, psychoanalysis and anthropology. These fields help him study how fears spread through whole societies.