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The Enemy Within: A Short History of Witch-Hunting
With the vision of a historian and the voice of a novelist, prize?winning author John Demos explores the social, cultural, and psychological roots of the scourge that is witch-hunting, both in the remote past and today. The Enemy Within chronicles the most prominent witch-hunts of the Western world?women and men who were targeted by suspicious neighbors and accused of committing horrific crimes by supernatural means?and shows how the fear of witchcraft has fueled recurrent cycles of accusation, persecution, and purging. A unique and fascinating book, it illumines the dark side of communities driven to rid themselves of perceived evil, no matter what the human cost.
336 pages, Paperback
First published September 18, 2008
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 50 reviews
November 12, 2009
I'm surprised at the negative reviews this book has received here. Perhaps those readers were expecting something more commercial and/or more directed at exploring the workings of witchcraft.
Having spent most of my life in Massachusetts, I have always been fascinated by witch trials (Salem) and the psychology behind the persecution of witches. This book doesn't address actual witchcraft but instead delves into that very psychology. The author's research is meticulous, his writing clear and easy to follow. The book isn't dragged out and I found no part of it in the least bit boring. I would suggest this book to anyone with an interest in the history and psychology behind witch hunts.
Having spent most of my life in Massachusetts, I have always been fascinated by witch trials (Salem) and the psychology behind the persecution of witches. This book doesn't address actual witchcraft but instead delves into that very psychology. The author's research is meticulous, his writing clear and easy to follow. The book isn't dragged out and I found no part of it in the least bit boring. I would suggest this book to anyone with an interest in the history and psychology behind witch hunts.
June 12, 2025
Just finished:
New York: Viking Books, 2008.
This book came about after Viking asked Demos to write a book about the history of witchcraft. He said it was different than what he normally writes because this text is a survey and not highly detailed (such as "Entertaining Satan: Witchcraft and the Culture of early New England), and it's fir a general audience.
My opinion of this book is mixed. In the pro column, I thought he dud a good job of describing who was accused of being a witch and the pattern that appeared in Europe and America. And it's apparent that Demos is a leading scholar in his field.
In the con category, I thought he should have focused more on European witchcraft than he did and should have done better integrating his ending chapters.
That said, it's a good intro text to the history of witchcraft.
New York: Viking Books, 2008.
This book came about after Viking asked Demos to write a book about the history of witchcraft. He said it was different than what he normally writes because this text is a survey and not highly detailed (such as "Entertaining Satan: Witchcraft and the Culture of early New England), and it's fir a general audience.
My opinion of this book is mixed. In the pro column, I thought he dud a good job of describing who was accused of being a witch and the pattern that appeared in Europe and America. And it's apparent that Demos is a leading scholar in his field.
In the con category, I thought he should have focused more on European witchcraft than he did and should have done better integrating his ending chapters.
That said, it's a good intro text to the history of witchcraft.
October 23, 2009
This is a fun and illuminating read.
I learned that one should try to avoid being a cranky European postmenopausal medieval rural poor widow during times of peace. That can only mean trouble.
I learned that one should try to avoid being a cranky European postmenopausal medieval rural poor widow during times of peace. That can only mean trouble.
January 29, 2009
Like most of us, I first read The Crucible as a sophomore in high school; but unlike most of the sophomores in my present-day classroom, I found it fascinating. It wasn't the supernatural aspect that hooked me so much (Although I won't pretend I didn't have a strong interest in the occult. I did, however that's another post for another day...), rather I was fascinated by how an entire community could go so stark raving, murderously mad - finding witches and wizards where there clearly were none. It was at first easy enough for me to shrug it off as a sign of the times. Puritans, I had learned, seemed predisposed to neurosis. But when I later learned that Arthur Miller had intended his play to serve as an allegory for the Red Scare of the 1950s, meaning that "witch hunts" remain a concern for the modern world, I was newly intrigued. After all, it's not as if I hadn't already figured out by that point that human beings could be crazy, but I was pretty curious as to what extent we could collectively lose our minds. It's a curiosity I hold to this day, and if anything its only strengthened over time.
And so, I was drawn to John Demos' book. I already knew a considerable amount about the literal witch hunts in both Europe and America, however I was curious what connections a historian could make between the literal hunts of the past and the figurative hunts of the modern era. I was hoping for a readable synthesis of the topic as well as a psychological explanation for the phenomenon. In retrospect, I'll admit that this was a pretty tall order indeed.
John Demos' The Enemy Within is a "broad-gauge summary and synthesis of the entire subject" of witchcraft, and is divided into four sections: an overview of the European witch hunting crazes of the 16th and 17th Centuries, an overview of witch hunting in Colonial America, a deeper look into the Salem witch hunts, and a broad look at figurative, modern-day witch hunts such as the anti-Mason movement, the child abuse scare of the 1980s and, of course, McCarthyism. Demos clearly knows his stuff, and I got the sense that the scope of what he was trying to do was so broad that he could only really touch on the tip of the iceberg. For someone new to the topic this book will serve as a nice introduction, however I couldn't help but feel frustrated that I came away from it without having learned more. Furthermore, I found myself wishing he had spent less time on Colonial America and more on the figurative witch hunts of the modern era.
In sum, if you are looking for a crash-course in the history of witch hunting in the Western World, then The Enemy Within is the book for you. However, be warned that it's a bit like a poorly-prepared holiday turkey - dry, and will leaving you wanting more.
And so, I was drawn to John Demos' book. I already knew a considerable amount about the literal witch hunts in both Europe and America, however I was curious what connections a historian could make between the literal hunts of the past and the figurative hunts of the modern era. I was hoping for a readable synthesis of the topic as well as a psychological explanation for the phenomenon. In retrospect, I'll admit that this was a pretty tall order indeed.
John Demos' The Enemy Within is a "broad-gauge summary and synthesis of the entire subject" of witchcraft, and is divided into four sections: an overview of the European witch hunting crazes of the 16th and 17th Centuries, an overview of witch hunting in Colonial America, a deeper look into the Salem witch hunts, and a broad look at figurative, modern-day witch hunts such as the anti-Mason movement, the child abuse scare of the 1980s and, of course, McCarthyism. Demos clearly knows his stuff, and I got the sense that the scope of what he was trying to do was so broad that he could only really touch on the tip of the iceberg. For someone new to the topic this book will serve as a nice introduction, however I couldn't help but feel frustrated that I came away from it without having learned more. Furthermore, I found myself wishing he had spent less time on Colonial America and more on the figurative witch hunts of the modern era.
In sum, if you are looking for a crash-course in the history of witch hunting in the Western World, then The Enemy Within is the book for you. However, be warned that it's a bit like a poorly-prepared holiday turkey - dry, and will leaving you wanting more.
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September 30, 2021Fun to read with your wife by a campfire
September 28, 2016
This book had very interesting subject matter and some very well-written sections, but most of it was rather dry. I liked the specific examples and descriptions of cases, but the broad overviews were pretty stuffy and it was hard not to just skim through. Stylistically, I was confused as to the exact meaning of the long italicized passages, something about it just didn't read right and I'm not sure what it was supposed to imply (were those parts quoted? Fictional? Why italicize?). In that vein, I couldn't often tell the difference between historical facts and records told in a narrative style and segments which were just the author's guesswork at what might've happened.
In the final chapters, reading about the Free Masons and the Haymarket Riot etc, was really interesting and made me want to learn more about them, but it's definitely not what I was looking for in picking up this book. My favorite parts were the tie-ins to modern day witches and Wicca, but that section is pretty brief. I also really liked the last chapter on the child day care centers, probably because I work in one, but I'd also heard about the panic before and wanted to learn more even if I wasn't expecting it at all by Chapter 12 of the book. I also thought it was published much earlier for most of my reading, late 90's to early 00's, definitely not 2008. I gained quite a few recommendations for further reading through this book, but I can't find much else to push me to suggest picking up The Enemy Within.
In the final chapters, reading about the Free Masons and the Haymarket Riot etc, was really interesting and made me want to learn more about them, but it's definitely not what I was looking for in picking up this book. My favorite parts were the tie-ins to modern day witches and Wicca, but that section is pretty brief. I also really liked the last chapter on the child day care centers, probably because I work in one, but I'd also heard about the panic before and wanted to learn more even if I wasn't expecting it at all by Chapter 12 of the book. I also thought it was published much earlier for most of my reading, late 90's to early 00's, definitely not 2008. I gained quite a few recommendations for further reading through this book, but I can't find much else to push me to suggest picking up The Enemy Within.
September 13, 2021
Starts off with a fascinating history about religion in the early AD. How it became a fight for an established religion to battle against a pagan one. How religious secs grew to overtake government authority, maintaining land, practice, and financial backing.
Then into England’s History, how anger and fear, the two emotional engines of witch-hunting, and without them the entire history would be different.
And then into America. Where a belief in conspiracy, or wickedly plotted attacks by the enemy, took center stage over witchcraft in the years following. It follows America to the present day and offers insight to the term “witch hunt” and how its practice lives on through recent history (using the red scare as an example).
—
It’s a shame that when he makes direct references to sources he doesn’t have an accurate way to pinpoint them or reference them back towards the bibliography. Or just leaving explanations for later. Example when he references the book of Exodus describing “thou shalt not suffer a witch to live,” was added in the 1600s in the “King James” edition; but he waits until later to point this out.
—
Parts I liked:
“Throw Christians to the lions!” - a citizen who disliked the turbulent government and religious practices of ancient AD. The persecution in Lyon in AD 177, is the story of the beginning.
Heresies sprung up: Gnosticism, Manichaeism, Pelagianism, and Arianism.
“Throughout the early middle ages, from roughly the 7th to 10th centuries, organized Christianity seems to have held God and Satan in a kind of balance.”
“Much of the energy behind the great witch-hunts during the “craze” period derived from a supercharged intensity about religion. As the protestant reformation proceeded past its initial stage and engaged head on with the catholic counter reformation, ideas clashed.”
People were afraid that “witchcraft” would bleed into “true religion” so the need for vigilance was constant. Unbelief, apostasy, and sin in every conceivable guys was rolled together in the figure of the witch. And behind her was the devil himself, a more personal immediate and dangerous threat. At the time it was also important that the Bible be taken into increasingly literal ways.
“Christianity, and one guise or another, serve as a political ideology, re-defining orthodoxy and helping to make state power felt at ground level. Often enough, witchcraft would appear right at the center of this trend, along side energetics programs of social reform. The drive for religious and political conformity imposed the kind of moral cleansing on the populace as a whole, with the figure of the witch held up as the quintessential subversive - the enemy incarnate - plotting against both God and the state.”
“If the beginnings of modern science helped erode the conceptual basis of witchcraft, they also ironically produced arise and what might be called “ paranoid thinking”.”
Then into England’s History, how anger and fear, the two emotional engines of witch-hunting, and without them the entire history would be different.
And then into America. Where a belief in conspiracy, or wickedly plotted attacks by the enemy, took center stage over witchcraft in the years following. It follows America to the present day and offers insight to the term “witch hunt” and how its practice lives on through recent history (using the red scare as an example).
—
It’s a shame that when he makes direct references to sources he doesn’t have an accurate way to pinpoint them or reference them back towards the bibliography. Or just leaving explanations for later. Example when he references the book of Exodus describing “thou shalt not suffer a witch to live,” was added in the 1600s in the “King James” edition; but he waits until later to point this out.
—
Parts I liked:
“Throw Christians to the lions!” - a citizen who disliked the turbulent government and religious practices of ancient AD. The persecution in Lyon in AD 177, is the story of the beginning.
Heresies sprung up: Gnosticism, Manichaeism, Pelagianism, and Arianism.
“Throughout the early middle ages, from roughly the 7th to 10th centuries, organized Christianity seems to have held God and Satan in a kind of balance.”
“Much of the energy behind the great witch-hunts during the “craze” period derived from a supercharged intensity about religion. As the protestant reformation proceeded past its initial stage and engaged head on with the catholic counter reformation, ideas clashed.”
People were afraid that “witchcraft” would bleed into “true religion” so the need for vigilance was constant. Unbelief, apostasy, and sin in every conceivable guys was rolled together in the figure of the witch. And behind her was the devil himself, a more personal immediate and dangerous threat. At the time it was also important that the Bible be taken into increasingly literal ways.
“Christianity, and one guise or another, serve as a political ideology, re-defining orthodoxy and helping to make state power felt at ground level. Often enough, witchcraft would appear right at the center of this trend, along side energetics programs of social reform. The drive for religious and political conformity imposed the kind of moral cleansing on the populace as a whole, with the figure of the witch held up as the quintessential subversive - the enemy incarnate - plotting against both God and the state.”
“If the beginnings of modern science helped erode the conceptual basis of witchcraft, they also ironically produced arise and what might be called “ paranoid thinking”.”
February 2, 2022
A fantastic work exploring the breadth and depth of witch-hunting, with the author's examination on witch hunts throughout the centuries.
Part One of the book covers Europe, starting with the persecution of early Christians and the Martyrs of Lyons, working through Greco-Roman polytheism and the Waldensians and Cathars. Throughout this early period, we see the growth of Christianity and the beginnings of the Devil and witchcraft. There is a brief mention of the Knights Templar before wrapping up Part One with a discussion of topics on witchcraft, such as "Sequence," "Scope," "Community," and "Emotion" to name a few, and capping it off with a chapter on the Malleus Maleficarum. I appreciate that Demos starts with the emergence of Christianity and that the "history of witch-hunting should begin with the persecution and martyrdom of the early Christians," and acknowledges that Christians are later "on the opposite side - as themselves the persecutors and martyr-makers."
Part Two discusses Early America starting with a brief focus on the death on Henry Stiles and the reactions of the community of Windsor, Connecticut in chapter four. The next chapter provides an overview of the time period in the New England colonies that lead up to the Salem trials, giving snippets of instances of accusations. To close on Part Two, Demos examines Mary Parsons and the community and circumstances that surround her.
Part Three puts Salem in the spotlight, opening with the infamous story of Rebecca Nurse. Chapter eight explores the trials in phases from life before, during, and after, and discusses Salem witchcraft causes in many lights, such as "fear of Indians" and "mental illness." Demos wraps up the topic with Cotton Mather and his involvement with the trials.
In the last section of the book, Part Four analyzes Modern America. There is lengthy discussion on the origins and witch-hunts of the Free Masons, the Illuminati, and McCarthyism, and closing the book with the Fells Acres Day Care abuse case.
I liked that in Parts Two and Four, Demos peppers the chapters with single instances of smaller scale witch-hunts. It's important to recognize that witch-hunts focusing on witchcraft had plagued the West over a few centuries, and it was kept alive with accusations popping up here and there over time. The discussion that witch hunts are not always focused on witchcraft is important to state, as well.
Overall, I really enjoyed read this book, and have learned a lot on the subject.
Part One of the book covers Europe, starting with the persecution of early Christians and the Martyrs of Lyons, working through Greco-Roman polytheism and the Waldensians and Cathars. Throughout this early period, we see the growth of Christianity and the beginnings of the Devil and witchcraft. There is a brief mention of the Knights Templar before wrapping up Part One with a discussion of topics on witchcraft, such as "Sequence," "Scope," "Community," and "Emotion" to name a few, and capping it off with a chapter on the Malleus Maleficarum. I appreciate that Demos starts with the emergence of Christianity and that the "history of witch-hunting should begin with the persecution and martyrdom of the early Christians," and acknowledges that Christians are later "on the opposite side - as themselves the persecutors and martyr-makers."
Part Two discusses Early America starting with a brief focus on the death on Henry Stiles and the reactions of the community of Windsor, Connecticut in chapter four. The next chapter provides an overview of the time period in the New England colonies that lead up to the Salem trials, giving snippets of instances of accusations. To close on Part Two, Demos examines Mary Parsons and the community and circumstances that surround her.
Part Three puts Salem in the spotlight, opening with the infamous story of Rebecca Nurse. Chapter eight explores the trials in phases from life before, during, and after, and discusses Salem witchcraft causes in many lights, such as "fear of Indians" and "mental illness." Demos wraps up the topic with Cotton Mather and his involvement with the trials.
In the last section of the book, Part Four analyzes Modern America. There is lengthy discussion on the origins and witch-hunts of the Free Masons, the Illuminati, and McCarthyism, and closing the book with the Fells Acres Day Care abuse case.
I liked that in Parts Two and Four, Demos peppers the chapters with single instances of smaller scale witch-hunts. It's important to recognize that witch-hunts focusing on witchcraft had plagued the West over a few centuries, and it was kept alive with accusations popping up here and there over time. The discussion that witch hunts are not always focused on witchcraft is important to state, as well.
Overall, I really enjoyed read this book, and have learned a lot on the subject.
October 11, 2019
I really enjoyed this book quite a bit and like some other reviewers I'm a bit surprised at so many negative reviews. It certainly is a bit heavy on Salem, but, then again, Salem is such an influential part of general witchcraft history that this isn't surprising. The book is definitely accessible to a reader like me who only has a vague familiarity with witchcraft history, and the book delivers exactly what is a promised - a general overview of two millennia of witchcraft history written for a general non-academic audience. I appreciate the format (4 sections covering distinct eras, with 3 chapters in each section, in the form of short anecdote, long analysis, short anecdote). My favorite Section was probably Part IV, even though some of the issues covered seemed like a bit of a stretch. If I could make one change I would have added a bit more analysis of modern events as they relate to witchcraft, as that was probably my favorite part. Overall an excellent way to go if you're looking for a "big picture" type of book.
May 24, 2021
In this book, Demos provides an overview of the similarities and differences between the literal witch hunts in Europe and America from 150 - 1700 and the metaphorical witch hunts of modern America (1700 -2005). Honestly, I disliked reading the first 3 sections. Because it is an overview, it lacked the impact of a true history and the readability of a commentary. Although Demos’ research was undoubtedly accurate, I found myself wishing for either a history or a commentary instead of the overview in front of me that tried to be both.
That said, I did find the comparisons between literal and metaphorical witch hunts to be interesting. My biggest takeaway was stated by Demos himself in the epilogue: “Always and everywhere, the witch is the recipient of projection, the carrier, the symbol. He or she stands for - and, in a sense, is made to absorb - an unacknowledged ‘dark side’ from the inner life of the hunters.”
That said, I did find the comparisons between literal and metaphorical witch hunts to be interesting. My biggest takeaway was stated by Demos himself in the epilogue: “Always and everywhere, the witch is the recipient of projection, the carrier, the symbol. He or she stands for - and, in a sense, is made to absorb - an unacknowledged ‘dark side’ from the inner life of the hunters.”
February 18, 2023
John Demos is one of my favorite historians, and I will read pretty much anything by him I can find. This is, as the subtitle says, "a brief history of witch-hunting," starting with the Martyrs of Lyons in A.D. 177 and ending with the Fells Acre Day School child abuse panic in 1984. Demos does a great job of synthesizing a LOT of material and combing out the commonalities between, say, the Malleus Maleficarum and Senator Joseph R. McCarthy. But I'm left wondering uneasily when the next witch-hunt will come along, or if Twitter and other social media make the half-life of a witch-hunt so brief that they're blossoming and dying all the time now.
Four and a half stars, round up to five.
Four and a half stars, round up to five.
April 20, 2023
Pretty interesting account of the possible broader societal causes of witch-hunting through history. The notion regarding the Christian world's conception of a duality (good v. evil, God v. Satan) as an answer to the problem of theodicy allowing for Satan-blaming societies; the targeting of abrasive, somewhat older females as witches; and the cultural components of close-knit/insular communities as being the most likely to go into panic mode as a result of external pressures was pretty compelling. The book dragged at the end when it tried to find parallels with the modern use of the term "witch-hunt" which really seems to be a semantic bastardization rather than a true hunt for the sources of malificium. The Comet pizzagate episode notwithstanding.
October 14, 2025
A pretty good historical review of witch hunts through time. I found a few things very interesting. In the first century, Christians were persecuted as witches, with claims they ate human flesh and were sexual deviants. Considering in later years they were the accusers rather than accused, that shocked me. The fact laws were made where it was illegal to accuse someone of being a witch because they wanted to make believing in witchcraft a crime. And most interesting, 30 minutes from the site of the Salem witch trials, 300 years later, another major witch hunt for child sexual abusers took place.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 24, 2018
A fascinating micro history of witch hunts in the Western world. The author’s main area of expertise seems to be those of the Salem era which made up the bulk of the book and made the modern examples feel hastiliy tacked on. It was a welcome surprise to learn that not only are these sort of events found in all regions and all times, they have a far stronger economic link than to spiritual or paranormal beliefs. What I thought would be a book of outdated superstition driven mania instead turned to a socio-economic lesson.
June 27, 2018
I preferred the primary sources used in The Penguin Book of Witches, but this does set up to explain prevailing attitudes of the time, and the prior trials in Europe over the centuries, as well as common themes. Overall, more comprehensive look at the subject than other books specific to the Salem witch trials, which were a segment of this book tied in to the overall whole, as opposed to encompassing the entirety of the book.
August 24, 2023
Worth the effort
John Demos sets out to discover commonalities between history's greatest witch hunts. He notes that from Salem to the fake Satanic panics of the 80s they all involve conspiratorial thinking, overwhelmingly target women, are manipulated by the justice system and pretend to be about saving the children. It's dense and involved but anyone interested in the history of injustice will find it worth their time.
John Demos sets out to discover commonalities between history's greatest witch hunts. He notes that from Salem to the fake Satanic panics of the 80s they all involve conspiratorial thinking, overwhelmingly target women, are manipulated by the justice system and pretend to be about saving the children. It's dense and involved but anyone interested in the history of injustice will find it worth their time.
January 23, 2018
Author if a professor and an expert on the topic. Not an easy, fun book, but very readable, thorough exploration of the topic. The final chapter is devastating, but I think you'd have to read the entire book to get the impact of that last chapter. Thoughtful exploration of the topic by someone who has read and thought about the topic extensively
January 31, 2019
I was hoping that this would be a thorough of chronology of witch trials throughout the centuries and how they changed and what social issues could be linked to them. The book kinda fell short. Obviously, Salem played a big part but not so much any other witch trial.
February 3, 2024
This book was a bit of a slog to finish. The source material is interesting enough, but it reads very dry like a textbook for a course. The author does a good job of presenting all the topics, but after a while it just feels like the same accounts over and over again.
March 16, 2018
I greatly enjoyed this book. It was a compelling look at witch hunts, how they happen, and some compelling, nuanced discussion on why they happen. I recommend it.
March 3, 2020
Interesting look at witch-hunts, before and after Salem.
March 13, 2017
A review of historic, class, gender, social, and political realities, and how they make human beings decide to look inward for enemies instead of outward.
March 9, 2009
As a newbie to all of this witchcraft stuff (the only book I’ve read with “Crucible” in the title was about the Bauhaus) I found this book quite engaging. Of course these days I find anything within the genre of NOT Architecture engaging (barring, of course, the Kaplan study guides for the Architectural Registration Exams. These definitely fall under the NOT Architecture category, but they’re about as engaging as invasive colonoscopy). To me this was a consistently interesting read – a page turner even – and I guess my only criticism revolves around what I sensed to be a forced inclusion of such “modern” episodes as the anti-Free Mason initiative and even the “witch hunting” during the two main Red Scares. The example of the daycare scandals of the mid 80s to early 90s, his main contemporary comparison to the sundry “pre-modern” witch trials, did seem a relevant inclusion for a book that purports to weave a narrative of witch-hunting regardless of actual alleged “witches” over that last 2,000 years. I suppose my feeling is that, as everything post-Salem is condensed into the last quarter of the book, he undermines his objective a bit. Indeed one might flippantly counter that the last 300 years should technically only fill 15% of a book covering two millennia to create a balanced portrayal. But at base, Demos attempts to establish how the chronologically and geographically sporadic, yet fundamentally consistent pattern of “pre-modern” witch-hunting also emerges in various non-clergy-induced “modern” forms. Because of brevity I think he falls short. However, as the somewhat annoying, italicized questions concluding each contemporary example never failed to disrupt the flow (”So…was it a witch-hunt…the missing parts are, as before, misogyny and overtly religious/moral sponsorship…” So…maybe?), perhaps too much speculative equivalencies would have pushed his star rating from 4 to 2.25. I dunno, I liked the book overall.
March 3, 2009
Demos' survey of withhunting stretches from the ironic persecution of early Christians by Romans--in which they were accused of the very things they would accuse witches of centuries later, and tortured and executed in similarly brutal fasion--to the Salem witch trials to the research done on witch trials since.
Perhaps the most compelling aspect he covers is the idea that there's a natural, perhaps inherent to humanity, phenomenon behind witch-hunting. That is, witch-hunts like those in the 17th century America and Europe before that were a manifestation of something that would surface in different times in different contexts. Plenty of historical examples of witch-hunt-like witch-hunts follow: McCarthyism, red scares, anti-Mason and Illuminati sentiment, etc.
Oddly, perhaps the most obvious and certainly most current form of a witch-hunt--America's post-9/11 terrorist hunt--is missing from Demos' examples. If there was a reason not to cover it, then Demos should have probably raised it if only to dismiss it, as it gives the latter part of the book the feel of one from a different universe. It's completely up-to-date, except it seems to have been written about a 9/11-less world.
Perhaps the most compelling aspect he covers is the idea that there's a natural, perhaps inherent to humanity, phenomenon behind witch-hunting. That is, witch-hunts like those in the 17th century America and Europe before that were a manifestation of something that would surface in different times in different contexts. Plenty of historical examples of witch-hunt-like witch-hunts follow: McCarthyism, red scares, anti-Mason and Illuminati sentiment, etc.
Oddly, perhaps the most obvious and certainly most current form of a witch-hunt--America's post-9/11 terrorist hunt--is missing from Demos' examples. If there was a reason not to cover it, then Demos should have probably raised it if only to dismiss it, as it gives the latter part of the book the feel of one from a different universe. It's completely up-to-date, except it seems to have been written about a 9/11-less world.
July 9, 2011
The term "witch hunt" is used today to describe all sorts of attempts by communities to rid themselves of elements deemed "evil", whether those elements are communists, child abusers, or heretics. People do not like what they do not understand, and crises, be they epidemics, wars, terrorists, or waves of immigrants, they tend to band together to find someone to blame, along with a way to expel that threat. In The Enemy Within, respected historian John Demos shows, in the first part of the book, how and why early western societies persecuted and executed suspected witches, examining the sociological factors that led to the panic. In the second part, he deals with contemporary society, in which we view ourselves as scientifically informed and free of superstition, yet persist in the ancient drive to identify and purge the causes of our deepest anxieties. Hard times seem to revive our collective fears, and the challenge is to avoid lapsing into the old, destructive, reactionary patterns. Written for the general reader, The Enemy Within is a potent reminder to remember how near to the surface the patterns remain, and to strive to find intelligent solutions to the very real problems that we face today.
January 31, 2009
I stopped reading fifty pages from the end of this book.
fifty pages.
that should be a perfectly clear indication of what I thought of it.
The first hundred pages were interesting, with a number of historical tidbits I found intriguing (example: Romans believed Christians took part in nightly orgies and cannibal feasts). There was an interesting moment, too, where John Demos went to lengths to explain that the difference between a witch hunt and a riotous mob was that the witch hunt hinges on the person having once been a fucntioning part of the community: that a witch hunt seeks out the person among the body politic, the well-to-do citizen who has betrayed the communtiy by secretly becoming a pernicious force. I found this fascinating. It was juicy, it was meaty, it was tasty.
Then all the moisture vanished and I wandered through the incredibly dry desert of the history of witchcraft.
John Demos draws veiled and weak comparisons between witch hunts of the past and modern-day "witch hunts," but fails to make compelling or even interesting cases.
In the end, after the first one hundred pages, the book lacks revelation and drive.
fifty pages.
that should be a perfectly clear indication of what I thought of it.
The first hundred pages were interesting, with a number of historical tidbits I found intriguing (example: Romans believed Christians took part in nightly orgies and cannibal feasts). There was an interesting moment, too, where John Demos went to lengths to explain that the difference between a witch hunt and a riotous mob was that the witch hunt hinges on the person having once been a fucntioning part of the community: that a witch hunt seeks out the person among the body politic, the well-to-do citizen who has betrayed the communtiy by secretly becoming a pernicious force. I found this fascinating. It was juicy, it was meaty, it was tasty.
Then all the moisture vanished and I wandered through the incredibly dry desert of the history of witchcraft.
John Demos draws veiled and weak comparisons between witch hunts of the past and modern-day "witch hunts," but fails to make compelling or even interesting cases.
In the end, after the first one hundred pages, the book lacks revelation and drive.
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December 5, 2012The author wrote this book to inform people about how the evolution of witch hunting. This book is not about witches so much, but more about the people who believed in witches and what they did when they thought they found one. The theme is a informational theme, it is to inform people about how false and bias opinions can bring a lot of harm and danger to people and cultures. How just because someone tells you something doesn't necessarily mean its true. the style was really to disprove the idea of believing in witches. the author is trying to so that it is a ridiculous idea that occurred ion ancient history, and there is really no honest proof for it. John Demos is trying to show us what happened when people just believed what they were told. the style is very effective, i mean he has a lot of good hard evidence that proves his case. Also when you look back at their torcher methods, they were pretty brutal for no good reason at all. they would do horrible things to innocent people. the author's opinion is obviously that he doesn't believe in witches and he thinks that pep0le should believe in witches.
October 13, 2013
Readable, interesting, and informative. After an exploration of early European witch-hunting and its intriguing intersections with Christianity, Demos spends about half the book on New England, especially Salem, which I suppose is to be expected. Most of that was familiar, but I still learned several interesting tidbits. The final section on more modern events that have been classified as "witch-hunts" included a lot of fascinating and (to me) unfamiliar material, though Demos could have spent less time rehashing his definition of a witch-hunt and what counted, and instead simply given us the similarities and differences amongst events (which were themselves quite interesting and well-explained). The Fall Acres Day School and similar "abuse" scandals were especially shocking evidence that the witch-hunt impetus is unfortunately still alive and well.
February 15, 2014
Though a lot of other reviewers thought this book was a bit too dry, I thought it was a pretty good balance of theory and accessibility without being too bogged down in academic minutia. It was able to communicate many of the broad currents underpinning the witch-hunts of the past without being patronizing as well as keeping them in the context of their times.
I much preferred the first two sections about early witch hunts and the detailed analysis of the Salem events. The last third was a brief overview of more metaphorical "witch hunts" in the history of the US which, while maybe spiritual step-children, failed to interest me as much as the descriptions of early modern folk magic and social justice which dominated the rest of the book.
I much preferred the first two sections about early witch hunts and the detailed analysis of the Salem events. The last third was a brief overview of more metaphorical "witch hunts" in the history of the US which, while maybe spiritual step-children, failed to interest me as much as the descriptions of early modern folk magic and social justice which dominated the rest of the book.
May 21, 2011
I enjoyed this book! The beginning was filled with new information, and while I was not enterested in reading more about Salem, I did end up enjoying the information and points of view that were offered. I especially enjoyed reading the final section about witch-hunting in the modern world. It is sad to read that we have had "panics" as recent as the '90s, and that they so closely resemble the events of Salem. I am glad I decided to pick this book up, even though I was not planning on reading this sort of material right now. I would recomend it to any willing to take a closer look at the panic that sets in when things get out of hand.
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