The Enemy Within 2,000 Years of Witch-hunting in the Western World

by Demos, John

• ISBN13: 9780670019991
• ISBN10: 0670019992
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2008-10-02
• Publisher: Viking Adult

Summary

"The term "witch-hunt" is used today to describe everything from political scandals to school board shake-ups, but its origins are far from casual. Long before Arthur Miller likened McCarthyism to the Salem witch trials, and long before those trials themselves, women and men were targeted by suspicious neighbors, accused of committing horrific crimes by supernatural means, scrutinized by magistrates, ministers, and jurymen, and summarily executed. The Enemy Within chronicles the most prominent witch-hunts of the Western world and shows how for two millennia the fear of witchcraft has fueled recurrent cycles of accusation, persecution, and community-wide purging." "With the vision of a historian and the voice of a novelist, John Demos explores the social, cultural, and psychological roots of the scourge that is witch-hunting, both now and in the remote past. An original and fascinating book, The Enemy Within illumines the dark side of a community driven to rid itself of perceived "evil," no matter what the human cost."--BOOK JACKET.

Author Biography

John Demos is Samuel Knight Professor of History at Yale University.

Table of Contents

Preface	p. ix
Prologue	p. 1
Europe	p. 5
Martyrs of Lyons: A Story from the Beginning	p. 7
Witch-hunting Panorama, 150-1750	p. 14
The Malleus Maleficarum: A Book and Its Travels	p. 62
Early America	p. 71
Windsor, Connecticut, 1654: A Town Entertaining Satan	p. 73
Witch-hunting in the American Colonies, 1607-92	p. 80
Mary Parsons: A Life Under Suspicion	p. 131
Salem	p. 141
Rebecca Nurse: A "Witch" and Her Trials	p. 143
The Most Famous Witch-hunt of All, 1692-93	p. 157
The Reverend Cotton Mather: A Minister and His Demons	p. 216
Modern America	p. 229
Anti-Masonry: A Politics of Panic	p. 231
Saga of Scares, 1700-2000	p. 241
Fells Acres Day School: A Question of Abuse	p. 282
Epilogue	p. 293
Bibliographic Commentary	p. 297
Index of Names	p. 309
General Index	p. 315
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.