Social media have produced echo chambers. Today's public opinion is extraordinarily polarized, and most of us trade ideas only with like-minded people. With the end of this state of affairs nowhere in sight, the University of Chicago Press has published a book that puts on display the best kind of scholarly disagreement, showing that contrasting interpretations of well-studied sources need not lead to relativism but that, rather, they can foster creativity.
The authors, Ginzburg and Lincoln, scholars of great distinction, have both devoted considerable attention to the trial of an elderly peasant from Livonia (a region encompassing today's Latvia and Estonia) held before the High Court in Dorpat (modern-day Tartu) in 1691–92. They have reached different conclusions about its implications for the study of popular religion and for historical method more generally. The volume consists of two original introductions by each author, the English translation of the trial transcript (which...
