Killing the Witches: The Horror of Salem, Massachusetts (Bill O’Reilly’s Killing Series) Kindle Edition

The Instant New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Publishers Weekly Bestseller!

Killing the Witches revisits one of the vital frightening and inexplicable episodes in American history: the events of 1692 and 1693 in Salem Village, Massachusetts. What started as a mysterious affliction of two young girls who suffered violent fits and exhibited bizarre behavior soon spread to other young women. Rumors of demonic possession and witchcraft consumed Salem. Soon three women were arrested under suspicion of being witches–but as the hysteria spread, more than 200 people were accused. Thirty were found guilty, twenty were executed, and others died in jail or their lives were ruined.

Killing the Witches tells the dramatic history of how the Puritan tradition and the power of early American ministers shaped the origins of the US, influencing the founding fathers, the American Revolution, or even the Constitutional Convention. The repercussions of Salem continue to the current day, notably in the actual-life story at the back of The Exorcist and in latest “witch hunts” driven by social media. The result’s a compulsively readable book about good, evil, community panic, and how fear can overwhelm fact and reason.