Books like Witchcraft by Malcolm Gaskill

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.

Silvia Federici traces how the transition from feudalism to capitalism was forged through violence against urban and peasant movements, culminating in the witch hunts that targeted women as a primary means of social expropriation.

An authoritative account of the 1692 Salem witch trials, detailing how fear and accusation turned a Massachusetts community into a scene of hysteria and execution.

Grade 11

"By spring 1645, two years of civil war had exacted a dreadful toll upon England. People lived in terror as disease and poverty spread, and the nation grew ever more politically divided. In a remote corner of Essex, two obscure gentlemen, Matthew Hopkins and John Stearne, exploited the anxiety and lawlessness of the time and initiated a brutal campaign to drive out the presumed evil in their midst ... Malcolm Gaskill retells the story of the most savage witch-hunt in English history ... Though their campaign was never legally sanctioned, they garnered the popular support of local gentry, clergy, and villagers ... [This story] serves as a reminder of the power of fear and fanaticism to fuel ordinary people's willingness to demonize others"--Dust jacket.

An in-depth examination of the evolution of European witchcraft, tracing ideological, cultural, and legal shifts that culminated in the devastating Witch Craze of the 16th and 17th centuries.

"The witch came to prominence--and often a painful death--in early modern Europe, yet her origins are much more geographically diverse and historically deep. In this landmark book, Ronald Hutton traces witchcraft from the ancient world to the early-modern stake. This book sets the notorious European witch trials in the widest and deepest possible perspective and traces the major historiographical developments of witchcraft. Hutton, a renowned expert on ancient, medieval, and modern paganism and witchcraft beliefs, combines Anglo-American and continental scholarly approaches to examine attitudes on witchcraft and the treatment of suspected witches across the world, including in Africa, the Middle East, South Asia, Australia, and North and South America, and from ancient pagan times to current interpretations. His fresh anthropological and ethnographical approach focuses on cultural inheritance and change while considering shamanism, folk religion, the range of witch trials, and how the fear of witchcraft might be eradicated"--