Gripping… Stirring witchcraft, politics and sexual perversity into the cauldron of a superstitious age, Tracy Borman seasons her brew with suggestions of poisoning and the black arts.

Tracy Borman has written a thorough and beautifully researched social history of the early 1600s, taking in everything from folk medicine to James I’s sex life.

Spellbinding

Tracy Borman has written a superb history of the witchcraze in early modern Europe focusing around this one case. Her book is enthralling and accurate… In many respects this is a triumph of popular historical writing.

A tantalising history... A panoramic survey of the witch craze that swept through Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries.

Moving and spirited.

Excellent.

Borman provides a fascinating account of the circumstances surrounding the case.

This is an entertaining piece of research that brings back to life three women who had the misfortune to live during a period that was terrified of the unknown and sought to tame that fear by turning it into a handful of dust.

As a work on the horrific treatment of witches throughout history, in particular the 16th and 17th centuries, it is shocking and illuminating.

Fascinating history of witchcraft in England… An immensely readable and never less than gripping account of a society in flux and the women who suffered to enable its stability.

Absorbing.

This is history at its most disturbing, and yet also most interesting.

Tracy Borman tells this strange, compelling and ultimately inconclusive story.

Borman’s enthusiasm and diligence keeps the history in place, while the central story, and the mysteries, lies and obfuscations that surround it, add a flavour of the detective novel.

The interest here lies in the accurate and plausible portrait of a whole society, from top to bottom… The details are fascinating

Stangneth’s close readings prove richly illuminating

Ms. Stangneth, acting more like an investigative journalist than an academic philosopher, does an excellent job in tracing the odyssey of these archival records, which are scattered across various continents . . . . With her well-written and impressively well-researched book, Ms. Stangneth not only adds many new, surprising details to our picture of Eichmann before the trial but also prepares the stage for follow-on research

Extraordinary . . . At each stage, the meticulous quality of [Stangneth’s] research and her distinctive moral outrage make the journey enthralling . . . Stangneth’s book has the flavor of a detective story . . . [A] fine, important book

Stangneth uses new documents to reconstruct the post-war lives of Nazis in exile, revealing an egotistical and skilled social manipulator.

How [Stangneth] put all this complex information relative to Eichmann together in one book is astounding. Freshly sourced archives and statements are used throughout, building into a full depiction of Eichmann.

If your Nordic knowledge is limited to ABBA, snow and Vikings, read this book. Even if you are a seasoned traveller, or one of the "humbly proud" inhabitants, The Almost Nearly Perfect People will give you new perspectives and questions to mull over.