Witchcraft Craze History

All the books on this page are new releases. I will try to put a date as close to the release date as possible, otherwise the date will be that on which I found the material.

If you know of any books I could put here please let me know! Link to the Submission Form is at the bottom of the page!

Witchcraft Persecutions in Bavaria: Popular Magic, Religious Zealotry and reason of State in Early Modern Europe by WOLFGANG BEHRINGER (Past & Present Publications, Cambridge, 1997)

This is the first english translation of Behringers most important book "Hexenverfolgung in Bayern", published in Germany 1987. In this part of Germany 900 witches were executed (and a many more tried for witchcraft) between 1560 and 1730. Behringer finds that most trials happend in years of particular dearth and famine. One of his conclusions is that every major persecution in this southeastern part of Germany was rooted in agrarian crisis. - His book should be read by anyone who only know about witchtrials in english speaking countries. There are almost 500 fascinating pages in his book.
Comment by Rune Hagen.

The Salem Witchcraft Trials : A Legal History (Landmark Law Cases and American Society) by Peter Charles Hoffer (Kansas UP, 1997)

Thinking with demons. The Idea of Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe by Stuart Clark (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1997)

(The fist book on the history of demonology. Brilliant study - it is bound to become a classical work - Comment by Rune Hagen)

Witchcraft and its transformations, c.1650-c.1750 by Ian Bostridge (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1997)

(About the debates around witchcraft in England, and why the witchhunts came to an end in England - Comment by Rune Hagen)

Damned Women: Sinners and Witches in Puritan New England by Elizabeth Reis (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press 1997)

A Trial of Witches : A Seventeenth Century Witchcraft Prosecution by Gilbert Geis & Ivan Bunn (Routledge, 1997).

Instruments of Darkness : Witchcraft in Early Modern England by James Sharpe (University of Pennslyvania Press, 1997).

The Story of the Salem Witch Trials : 'We Walked in Clouds and Could Not See Our Way' by Bryan F. Lebeau (P T R Prentice Hall, 1997).

A Delusion of Satan : The Full Story of the Salem Witch Trials by Frances Hill (Da Capo Pr, 1997).

Witchcraft, Lycanthropy, Drugs, and Disease : An Anthropological Study of the European Witch-Hunts by H. Sidky (Peter Lang Pub, 1997).

The Salem Witch Trials (How History is Invented) by Lori Lee Wilson (Lerner Pubns Co, 1996).

Witches & Historians: Interpretations of Salem by Marc Mappen (Krieger Pub Co, 1996).

Tituba, Reluctant Witch of Salem: Devilish Indians and Puritan Fantasies by Elaine G. Breslaw, (New York: New York University Press, 1996).

For review see H-Net Book Reviews

The Witch Hunt in Early Modern Europe (Second Edition) by Brian P. Levack (London: Longman, 1995)

For review see H-Net Book Reviews

Witches and Neighbours: The Social and Cultural Context of European Witchcraft by Robin Briggs

For a review see The Interactive Times

Oedipus and the Devil: Witchcraft, Sexuality and Religion in Early Modern Europe by Lyndal Roper (Londen: Routledge, 1994)

Witchcraze: A New History of the European Witch Hunts by Anne Llewellyn Barstow (New York: Pandora-Harper, 1994)

Women, Crime, and the Courts in Early Modern England. by Jennifer Kermode and Garthine Walker, editors. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1994)

For review see H-Net Book Reviews

Women and Gender in Early Modern Europe by Merry E. Weisner (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1993)

(This book contains a chapter each on religion and witchcraft.)

The Devil's Disciples: Makers of the Salem Witchcraft Trials by Peter Charles Hoffer

(Analyzes the cultural, historical, and psychological origins of the 1692 trials in Salem, Mass. 296 pages. Johns Hopkins University Press - May 17)

Catalog of the Cornell Library Witchcraft Collection Cornell Univ. Press