Blasphemies of Thomas Aikenhead

Michael F. Graham is Professor of History and sometime Director of the Humanities in the Western Tradition programme at the University of Akron, Ohio. His previous publications include 'The Uses of Reform: 'Godly Discipline' and Popular Behaviour in Scotland and Beyond, 1560-1610' (1996), which was awarded the Roland Bainton Prize by the Sixteenth Century Studies Conference. His research focuses on the religious, cultural and social history of early modern Britain.

• Table of Figures; Abbreviations; A Note on the Text; Acknowledgments; Introduction; 1: Edinburgh and Scotland in the mid-1690s; 2: The Politics of Blasphemy; 3: "So unnaturall a seasone": The Dreadful Year 1696; 4: The Making of a Blasphemer; 5: Trial and Execution; 6: The Aftermath: Public Opinion in Scotland and England; Conclusion; Bibliography of Works Cited; Index.

Michael F. Graham tackles the infamous Aikenhead case with a microhistorical approach. He examines Aikenhead's case in the context of the social history of 1690s Edinburgh and explains how a student became a scapegoat… Graham makes a convincing case that social factors influenced the fate of Thomas Aikenhead.