Satan and the Scots, c.1560-1700: The Devil in Post-Reformation Scotland (Routledge, 2016)
Exploring what it meant to live in a world in which Satan’s presence was believed to be, and indeed, perceived to be, ubiquitous, this book recreates the role of the Devil in the mental worlds of the Scottish people from the Reformation through the early eighteenth century. In so doing it is both the first history of the devil in Scotland and a case study of the profound ways that beliefs about evil can change lives and shape whole societies.
Knowing Demons, Knowing Spirits in the Early Modern Period, edited with Richard Raiswell and David Winter (Palgrave, 2018)
This book explores the manifold ways of knowing—and knowing about—preternatural beings such as demons, angels, fairies, and other spirits that inhabited early modern European worlds. Its contributors examine how people across the social spectrum assayed the various types of spiritual entities that they believed dwelled invisibly but meaningfully in the spaces just beyond (and occasionally within) the limits of human perception. The volume demonstrates that an understanding of the nature and capabilities of spirits, whether benevolent or malevolent, was fundamental to the knowledge-making practices that characterize the years between ca. 1500 and 1750.
