Inspired by recent efforts to understand the dynamics of the early modern witch hunt, Johannes Dillinger has produced a powerful synthesis based on careful comparisons. Narrowing his focus to two specific regions--Swabian Austria and the Electorate of Trier--he provides a nuanced explanation of how the tensions between state power and communalism determined the course of witch hunts that claimed over 1,300 lives in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Germany. Dillinger finds that, far from representing the centralizing aggression of emerging early states against local cultures, witch hunts...

The Forefathers of Terrorism investigates the beginnings of organized political crime. Ever since the beginnings of the modern state in the late Middle Ages, the state has been challenged by terrorist violence. This book explores the origins and development of two essential forms of terrorism, the assassination of rulers and attacks on the civilian population, explaining how the fight against political crime helped to shape the modern state itself.

From the 13th century onward, the seemingly modern crime of terrorism featured under various guises in the legal traditions of...