Paul Boyer is the Merle Curti Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His many books include Salem Possessed (with Stephen Nissenbaum), By the Bomb's Early Light, When Time Shall Be No More, and Fallout. He is editor in chief of The Oxford Companion to United States History.

The best literary, social, and ethical history of book censorship in the U.S. - Choice ""Boyer has traced the confusions, the ironies, and the sometimes humorous and sometimes tragic effects of American efforts to cope with the question of what is permissible and what is taboo in the public morality and in the printed word."" - George K. Smart, American Quarterly