The Book Prize Index

Entertaining Satan: Witchcraft and the Culture of Early New England

John Putnam Demos

In the first edition of the Bancroft Prize-winning Entertaining Satan, John Putnam Demos presented an entirely new perspective on American witchcraft. By investigating the surviving historical documents of over a hundred actual witchcraft cases, he vividly recreated the world of New England during the witchcraft trials and brought to light fascinating information on the role of witchcraft in early American culture. Now Demos has revisited his original work and updated it to illustrate why these early Americans' strange views on witchcraft still matter to us today. He provides a new preface that puts forth a broader overview of witchcraft and looks at its place around the world--from ancient times right up to the present.

HistoryAmerican History · medium confidenceAmerican History81 signalsLlm Classifier: American History -> American HistoryGoogle Books: History -> HistoryKeyword Classifier: American History -> American HistoryAmerican PoliticsBusiness, Capitalism & CorporationsLiterature & Writers

Award History

1 wins · 2 total

AwardYearResultCategory / Notes
Bancroft PrizeMajor1983WinnerOfficial source
National Book Award for History HardcoverMajor1983FinalistSecondary source
View all award history (2)
Experimental book profileGenerated by GPT-5.4 nano · may contain inaccuracies

This is an unverified interpretation of the catalog description, offered as an opt-in discovery experiment—not as bibliographic fact.

  1. 01 Central figures

    None extracted with sufficient confidence.

  2. 02 Central places

    None extracted with sufficient confidence.

    These suggestions did not meet the normal display threshold and are more likely to be wrong.

    • New England70%

  3. 03 Suggested argument

    No argument inferred with sufficient confidence.

    This suggestion did not meet the normal display threshold and is more likely to be wrong.

    Investigating surviving documents from over a hundred witchcraft cases reveals witchcraft’s place in early American culture, showing that early Americans’ strange views on witchcraft still matter today.

    Model confidence 56%

  4. 04 Reading orientation

    70 / 100 academic

    Academic

    An estimate of intended readership and scholarly apparatus—not quality or importance.

Confidence percentages are the model's own estimates. Profile confidence: 72%.