Deeply researched, crisply composed, and highly engaging, this is arguably the best introductory survey available on witchcraft in the early modern English Atlantic. A work of synthesis and innovative scholarship, it will be of interest to neophytes and experts alike.
~Choice
The virtue of Paul Moyer's book is that it presents in most readable form the basics of a dense and complex subject: witchcraft beliefs and practices in New England and early modern Europe in the period between 1640 and 1670. A transatlantic analysis of witchcraft activity in this period is essential because New England thinkers were reading and assimilating European ideas and seeing themselves in that light, especially in terms of English cases. Moyer's book is rich in material and well nuanced. The subject as a whole, including all the relevant cases and a variety of interpretive perspectives, has rarely been brought together in a single volume.
~Early American Literature
Detestable and Wicked Arts is an important and needed contribution to the study of New England witchcraft, as well as to the field of Atlantic studies Moyer's accessible, jargon-free writing style and sophisticated handling of an extraordinary number of primary sources and case studies makes Detestable and Wicked Arts especially suitable for undergraduate and graduate students and nonspecialists
~Journal of American History
Moyer's study is an extremely well-researched, fully considered, well-structured study of events that are, by their very nature, incoherent and messy.
~The Seventeenth Century
