Satan illuminates the influence of the British revolutions in the seventeenth century and shifts in the religious, political, scientific, literary, economic, social and moral culture they brought. He does it through the wonderful story of one family and their local location: Coopers Hertford.

Their dramatic history contains a murder mystery, a great wife, a scandal story, and a tyrannical wife, all against the background of local factions competing violently, widespread religious prejudice, and the most eloquent conviction in England. Spencer Cooper was accused of killing Quaker, and his brother William had two illegitimate children from his second wife.

Her scandalous life has become a source of public gossip, to the point of horror of her mother, Sarah, who poured her heart into a notebook that also records her sense of her husband. Her sons remained in the spotlight.

Both were instrumental in prosecuting Henry Saatchirvili, a cleric full of shaykhs, who preached a sermon about the illegitimacy of resistance and religious tolerance. His parliamentary trial in 1710 sparked serious riots in London.

William Cowper intervened in 1712 to secure the life of Jane Winham, whose trial sparked widespread debate about the beliefs of magic. Cowbers and their city are a miniature image of a changing world.

Their story suggests that the early "Enlightenment," far from being merely a movement of ideas raised by "great thinkers", has been shaped and developed through local and personal conflicts.

I want that book.