They Flew: A History of the Impossible

Title: They Flew: A History of the Impossible Author: Carlos M N Eire ISBN: 9780300280074 Publisher: Yale University Press Published: 2024 Binding: Paperback Language: English Condition: New New from the publisher Non-Fiction 1623261 Publisher Description: An award-winning historian's examination of impossible events at the dawn of modernity and of their enduring significance "Historically rich and superbly written."--David J. Davis, Wall Street Journal Accounts of seemingly impossible phenomena abounded in the early modern era--tales of levitation, bilocation, and witchcraft--even as skepticism, atheism, and empirical science were starting to supplant religious belief in the paranormal. In this book, Carlos M. N. Eire explores how a culture increasingly devoted to scientific thinking grappled with events deemed impossible by its leading intellectuals. Eire observes how levitating sa