Books like Salem possessed by Paul S. Boyer

In 1893 Chicago, Erik Larson weaves the story of visionary architect Daniel Burnham and the cunning serial killer H.H. Holmes, whose crimes unfolded against the backdrop of the World’s Columbian Exposition.

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.

The Salem Witch Trials: A 17th-Century Mystery Unfolding in Salem Village

Based on research in the Inquisitorial archives, the book recounts the story of a peasant fertility cult centered on the benandanti. These men and women regarded themselves as professional anti-witches, who (in dream-like states) apparently fought ritual battles against witches and wizards, to protect their villages and harvests. If they won, the harvest would be good, if they lost, there would be famine. The inquisitors tried to fit them into their pre-existing images of the witches' sabbat. The result of this cultural clash which lasted over a century, was the slow metamorphosis of the benandanti into their enemies - the witches. The author shows clearly how this transformation of the popular notion of witchcraft was manipulated by the Inquisitors, and disseminated all over Europe and even to the New World. The peasants' fragmented and confused testimony reaches us with immediacy, enabling the reader to identify a level of popular belief which constitutes a valuable witness for the reconstruction of the peasant way of thinking of this age.

An early historical account of the Salem witch trials that examines the widespread belief in witchcraft and the legal proceedings that shaped the legacy of early Massachusetts.

Examining the 1692 Salem witch trials through surviving primary documents, this book challenges popular myths, highlighting rational accusations, confessions, and the roles of accusers and victims, including the scapegoated slave Tituba.

Frances Hill explores the Salem witch trials of 1691–1693, unraveling the social, psychological, and feminist forces that turned ordinary citizens into accusers and condemned over a hundred people to death or imprisonment.

A meticulously researched, day‑by‑day account of the 1692–1697 Salem witch trials, revealing lesser‑known documents, court records, and the broader social, colonial, and international forces that shaped the crisis.