Professor Malcolm Gaskill’s recently published book, The Ruin of all Witches: Life and Death in the New World, has received high praise from many quarters. It is a tragic tale of the struggles of life in Springfield, Massachusetts in 1651, speaking to neighbourhood rivalries, social and political power structures, early modern gender roles, and what it meant to be accused of witchcraft in the New World.

In this episode we discuss all of these themes and more, exploring how Malcolm adeptly explains the past without explaining it away and finding a simple but powerful moral to the story that can be applied in any era.

(Episode recorded on 16th November 2022.)