The Enemy Within: A Short History of Witch-hunting

With the vision of a historian and the voice of a novelist, prize?winning author John Demos explores the social, cultural, and psychological roots of the scourge that is witch-hunting, both in the remote past and today. The Enemy Within chronicles the most prominent witch-hunts of the Western world?women and men who were targeted by suspicious neighbors and accused of committing horrific crimes by supernatural means?and shows how the fear of witchcraft has fueled recurrent cycles of accusation, persecution, and purging. A unique and fascinating book, it illumines the dark side of communities driven to rid themselves of perceived evil, no matter what the human cost.

John Demos is Samuel Knight Professor of history at Yale University. He is the author of several histories of early America, including Entertaining Satan, which was awarded the Bancroft Prize in American History, and The Unredeemed Captive, which received the Francis Parkman and Ray Allen Billington prizes in American history and was a finalist for the National Book Award. He lives in Tyringham, Massachusetts.