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Malcolm Gaskill on Why Our Ancestors Weren't as Superstitious as We Think
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Yascha Mounk and Malcolm Gaskill debate what the Enlightenment got wrong about the so-called age of credulity. Malcolm Gaskill, Emeritus Professor of Early Modern History at the University of East Anglia, is the author of seven books, including Witchfinders, Between Two Worlds, and The Ruin of All Witches. In this week's conversation, Yascha Mounk and Malcolm Gaskell discuss how premodern people understood the boundary between the natural and supernatural worlds, why historians are right—and wrong—to complicate the Enlightenment's story of progress, and what the persistence of superstition tells us about human nature. If you have not yet signed up for our podcast, please do so now by…