The Enemy Within 2,000 Years of Witch-hunting in the Western World

"The term "witch-hunt" is used today to describe everything from political scandals to school board shake-ups, but its origins are far from casual. Long before Arthur Miller likened McCarthyism to the Salem witch trials, and long before those trials themselves, women and men were targeted by suspicious neighbors, accused of committing horrific crimes by supernatural means, scrutinized by magistrates, ministers, and jurymen, and summarily executed. The Enemy Within chronicles the most prominent witch-hunts of the Western world and shows how for two millennia the fear of witchcraft has fueled recurrent cycles of accusation, persecution, and community-wide purging." "With the vision of a historian and the voice of a novelist, John Demos explores the social, cultural, and psychological roots of the scourge that is witch-hunting, both now and in the remote past. An original and fascinating book, The Enemy Within illumines the dark side of a community driven to rid itself of perceived "evil," no matter what the human cost."--BOOK JACKET.

John Demos is Samuel Knight Professor of History at Yale University.