The debts marked in Pynchon’s ledger book were a key source of tension in the small and isolated plantation. In the vivid three-dimensionality of its dramatis personae, the eloquence of its writing, and the richness of its evocations of vanished worlds of landscape and belief . The Ruin of All Witches was an attempt to make witchcraft make sense to a modern audience in the mind of their ancestors. I grew up feeling that Medway had been on a kind of home-front front line during the war, showered with flying bombs and incendiaries.

In those four walls she had stared at her thoughts until they took the shape as monsters and devils, and she expressed a wish to see the ruin of all witches. This is a non fictional account of witchcraft, and of one case in particular, in mid 17th century New England, in a remote community in Massachusetts.Springfield, New England 1651, and strange and frightening things have started to happen, with suspicions firmly centring on young couple, Hugh and Mary Parsons. An infestation of caterpillars falls to Earth following a “great thunder shower”, and promptly lays waste to fields of wheat, barley and oats. I like microhistory, I like social history, so this is pretty much a slam dunk in terms of targeting me personally. Evidence might be found on a witch’s body: a secret teat for suckling the infesting imp, which might take the form of a butterfly, dog, mouse or serpent. Scrupulously recreating the atmosphere of the times, he largely refuses to cast judgment or to supply distracting modern diagnoses of any mental illnesses that may have been at work.

But Gaskill expertly shows how Springfield was effectively in chaos, not least due to the incompatible nature of settler life with Puritanism. My only previous knowledge of this area and time period comes from accounts of the Salem witch trials and acting in a production of Miller's 'The Crucible'. In terms of how much it’s changed, and whether we have changed, I think that hostility of the powerful towards the powerless is something that we do see in our own time, and perhaps that it’s getting worse.The thoughts, feelings and reasonings of historical characters are respected, and taken on their own terms, something I’d argue is essential whenever dealing with anything from the past that doesn’t seem immediately rational to us. One of Britain's leading experts in the history of witchcraft, his works include the highly acclaimed Witchfinders: A Seventeenth-Century English Tragedy and Between Two Worlds: How the English Became Americans. We chat to him about the Wolfson History Prize, the gender-politics of his new book and what we can learn from witch-hunting today. One of Britain's leading experts in the history of witchcraft, his works include the highly acclaimed Witchfinders, Between Two Worlds and Sunday Times bestseller The Ruin of All Witches: Life and Death in the New World.