澳洲评论家妮可·金博尔近日评析记者卢西安娜·托蒂的著作《善良的女巫：寻找我们失去的女性力量》[1]。该书通过个人化的历史叙述和实地考察，探讨了欧洲与北美早期现代时期的巫术狩猎事件，并强调女性受害者的故事[1]。这一时期的巫术狩猎中，约85%的受害者是女性[1]。
托蒂的著作分为五个部分，分别以园丁、谗言、纺织工、治疗者和水仙女为主题[1]。其中涉及的一个具体案例是彭德尔女巫事件：12人受审，10人被处死，1人在狱中死亡，仅1人被宣布无罪[1]。为纪念这一历史，当地开辟了兰开斯特女巫路，这是一条51英里（82公里）长的步道，追踪彭德尔女巫走向兰开斯特受审的路线[1]。
然而，金博尔指出该书虽具有历史同理心的价值，但存在重要缺陷[1]。她批评托蒂将巫术狩猎的复杂成因过度简化为男性厌女症，并对学术研究持贬低态度，将学术研究描述为"临床"和"吹毛求疵"，这暗示男性贡献因缺乏同理心而价值较低[1]。在描写意大利农场的段落中，托蒂虽然承认"部分工作由男性完成"，但声称"Quintosapore的做法明显具有女性特质"[1]。金博尔认为这些做法传递出"男性是问题所在"的有问题的信息[1]。
Australian commentator Nicole Kimball has critiqued journalist Lucianne Tonti's book Good Witch: In Search of Our Lost Feminine Power, which examines witch hunts across early modern Europe and North America through personal narrative and field investigation, centering on the experiences of female victims [1]. While acknowledging the work's value in fostering historical empathy, Kimball argues that Tonti oversimplifies the complex causes of witch hunts by attributing them primarily to male misogyny [1].
Tonti's book is structured around five categories—the gardener, the gossip, the weaver, the healer, and the narcissist—to explore different aspects of the persecution [1]. The historical record shows that approximately 85 percent of witch hunt victims during the early modern period (1500–1789) were women [1]. A prominent example featured in the work is the Pendle case, in which 12 people were tried, 10 were executed, one died in prison, and only one was acquitted [1]. The book also highlights the Lancaster Witches Walk, a 51-mile pathway tracing the route the Pendle witches traveled to their trial at Lancaster [1].
Kimball contends that Tonti dismisses scholarly research as "clinical" and "pedantic," implying that male contributions lack sufficient compassion and therefore hold diminished value [1]. The critic further points to Tonti's description of an Italian farm, where Tonti writes that "although some of the work was done by men, the practices of Quintosapore were distinctly feminine," as evidence of the author's tendency to frame history through a gendered lens that underestimates alternative explanations for the witch hunts [1].
