Paul Samuel Boyer is a U.S. cultural and intellectual historian (Ph.D., Harvard University

Harvard University

Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...

, 1966) and is Merle Curti Professor of History Emeritus and former director (1993–2001) of the Institute for Research in the Humanities at the University of Wisconsin–Madison

University of Wisconsin–Madison

The University of Wisconsin–Madison is a public research university located in Madison, Wisconsin, United States. Founded in 1848, UW–Madison is the flagship campus of the University of Wisconsin System. It became a land-grant institution in 1866...

. He has held visiting professorships at UCLA, Northwestern University

Northwestern University

Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston and Chicago, Illinois, USA. Northwestern has eleven undergraduate, graduate, and professional schools offering 124 undergraduate degrees and 145 graduate and professional degrees....

, and William & Mary

College of William and Mary

The College of William & Mary in Virginia is a public research university located in Williamsburg, Virginia, United States...

; has received Guggenheim and Rockefeller Foundation Fellowships; and is an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Society of American Historians, and the American Antiquarian Society

American Antiquarian Society

The American Antiquarian Society , located in Worcester, Massachusetts, is both a learned society and national research library of pre-twentieth century American History and culture. Its main building, known also as Antiquarian Hall, is a U.S. National Historic Landmark...

.

Biography

Before coming to Wisconsin in 1980, he taught at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst (1967–1980).

Selected publications

• Purity in Print: Book Censorship in America from the Gilded Age to the Computer Age (NY: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1968; 2nd edition with two new chapters, Madison: University of Wisconsin Press
  University of Wisconsin Press
  The University of Wisconsin Press is a non-profit university press publishing peer-reviewed books and journals. It primarily publishes work by scholars from the global academic community but also serves the citizens of Wisconsin by publishing important books about Wisconsin, the Upper Midwest, and...
  
  , 2002)
• Notable American Women, 1600-1950 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press
  Harvard University Press
  Harvard University Press is a publishing house established on January 13, 1913, as a division of Harvard University, and focused on academic publishing. In 2005, it published 220 new titles. It is a member of the Association of American University Presses. Its current director is William P...
  
  , 3 vols., 1971). Assistant editor.
• Salem Possessed: The Social Origins of Witchcraft (Cambridge: Harvard University Press
  Harvard University Press
  Harvard University Press is a publishing house established on January 13, 1913, as a division of Harvard University, and focused on academic publishing. In 2005, it published 220 new titles. It is a member of the Association of American University Presses. Its current director is William P...
  
  , 1974). Co-author with Stephen Nissenbaum.
  • Winner of the John H. Dunning Prize of the American Historical Association
  • Nominated for a National Book Award
• The Salem Witchcraft Papers, co-editor with Stephen Nissenbaum (3 vols., NY: DaCapo Press, 1977)
• Masses and Moral Order in America, 1820-1920 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press
  Harvard University Press
  Harvard University Press is a publishing house established on January 13, 1913, as a division of Harvard University, and focused on academic publishing. In 2005, it published 220 new titles. It is a member of the Association of American University Presses. Its current director is William P...
  
  , 1978)
• By the Bomb's Early Light: American Thought and Culture at the Dawn of the Atomic Age (NY: Pantheon, 1985; 2nd edn. with a new introduction, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1994)
• Reagan as President: Contemporary Views of the Man, His Politics, and His Politicies Edited with an Introduction by Paul Boyer (Chicago, Ivan R. Dee, 1990).
• When Time Shall Be No More: Prophecy Belief in Modern American Culture (Cambridge: Harvard University Press
  Harvard University Press
  Harvard University Press is a publishing house established on January 13, 1913, as a division of Harvard University, and focused on academic publishing. In 2005, it published 220 new titles. It is a member of the Association of American University Presses. Its current director is William P...
  
  , 1992)
• Fallout: A Historian Reflects on America's Half-Century Encounter With Nuclear Weapons (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1998)