Books like Witch hunting in southwestern Germany, 1562-1684 by H. C. Erik Midelfort

The Crucible is a play by Arthur Miller that dramatizes the Salem witch trials of 1692-1693, reflecting on McCarthyism and American history through allegory.

Johannes Kepler (1571-1630) was one of the most admired astronomers who ever lived and a key figure in the scientific revolution. A defender of Copernicus's sun-centered universe, he famously discovered that planets move in ellipses, and defined the three laws of planetary motion. Perhaps less well known is that in 1615, when Kepler was at the height of his career, his widowed mother Katharina was accused of witchcraft. The proceedings led to a criminal trial that lasted six years, with Kepler conducting his mother's defense. In 'The Astronomer and the Witch', Ulinka Rublack pieces together the tale of this extraordinary episode in Kepler's life, one which takes us to the heart of his changing world. First and foremost an intense family drama, the story brings to life the world of a small Lutheran community in the centre of Europe at a time of deep religious and political turmoil-- a century after the Reformation, and on the threshold of the Thirty Years' War. Kepler's defense of his mother also offers us a fascinating glimpse into the great astronomer's world view, on the cusp between Reformation and scientific revolution. While advancing rational explanations for the phenomena which his mother's accusers attributed to witchcraft, Kepler nevertheless did not call into question the existence of magic and witches. On the contrary, he clearly believed in them. And, as the story unfolds, it appears that there were moments when even Katharina's children wondered whether their mother really did have nothing to hide ...

"In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries thousands of women confessed to being witches and were put to death ... Drawing on hundreds of original trial transcripts and other rare sources in four areas of Southern Germany, where most of the witches were executed, Lyndal Roper paints a vivid picture of their lives, families and tribulations. She also explores the psychology of witch-hunting, explaining why it was mostly older women who were the victims of witch crazes, why they confessed to crimes, and how the depiction of witches in art and literature has influenced the characterisation of elderly women in western culture"--dust jacket.