The Specter of Salem

The Specter of Salem
Title The Specter of Salem PDF eBook
Author Gretchen A. Adams
Publisher University of Chicago Press
Pages 239
Release 2008-11-15
Genre Religion
ISBN 0226005429

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In The Specter of Salem, Gretchen A. Adams reveals the many ways that the Salem witch trials loomed over the American collective memory from the Revolution to the Civil War and beyond. Schoolbooks in the 1790s, for example, evoked the episode to demonstrate the new nation’s progress from a disorderly and brutal past to a rational present, while critics of new religious movements in the 1830s cast them as a return to Salem-era fanaticism, and during the Civil War, southerners evoked witch burning to criticize Union tactics. Shedding new light on the many, varied American invocations of Salem, Adams ultimately illuminates the function of collective memories in the life of a nation. “Imaginative and thoughtful. . . . Thought-provoking, informative, and convincingly presented, The Specter of Salem is an often spellbinding mix of politics, cultural history, and public historiography.”— New England Quarterly “This well-researched book, forgoing the usual heft of scholarly studies, is not another interpretation of the Salem trials, but an important major work within the scholarly literature on the witch-hunt, linking the hysteria of the period to the evolving history of the American nation. A required acquisition for academic libraries.”—Choice, Outstanding Academic Title 2009

The Specter of Salem

The Specter of Salem
Title The Specter of Salem PDF eBook
Author Gretchen A. Adams
Publisher ReadHowYouWant.com
Pages 450
Release 2010-11
Genre History
ISBN 1459605829

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The 1950s drama 'The Crucible' underscored the link between contemporary political investigations and the 1692 Salem witch trials. This book reveals that this 20th-century cultural movement followed a long history of appeals to American memories of the witch trials.

Escaping Salem

Escaping Salem
Title Escaping Salem PDF eBook
Author Richard Godbeer
Publisher Oxford University Press, USA
Pages 197
Release 2005
Genre History
ISBN 0195161297

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Turning an eye to a relatively unknown witchcraft trial in Stamford, Connecticut, Godbeer pens a gripping narrative that captures the mindset of colonial New England.

In the Devil's Snare

In the Devil's Snare
Title In the Devil's Snare PDF eBook
Author Mary Beth Norton
Publisher Vintage
Pages 450
Release 2007-12-18
Genre History
ISBN 030742636X

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Award-winning historian Mary Beth Norton reexamines the Salem witch trials in this startlingly original, meticulously researched, and utterly riveting study. In 1692 the people of Massachusetts were living in fear, and not solely of satanic afflictions. Horrifyingly violent Indian attacks had all but emptied the northern frontier of settlers, and many traumatized refugees—including the main accusers of witches—had fled to communities like Salem. Meanwhile the colony’s leaders, defensive about their own failure to protect the frontier, pondered how God’s people could be suffering at the hands of savages. Struck by the similarities between what the refugees had witnessed and what the witchcraft “victims” described, many were quick to see a vast conspiracy of the Devil (in league with the French and the Indians) threatening New England on all sides. By providing this essential context to the famous events, and by casting her net well beyond the borders of Salem itself, Norton sheds new light on one of the most perplexing and fascinating periods in our history.

The Salem Witch Trials

The Salem Witch Trials
Title The Salem Witch Trials PDF eBook
Author Marilynne K. Roach
Publisher Taylor Trade Publications
Pages 760
Release 2004
Genre History
ISBN 9781589791329

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The Salem Witch Trials is based on over twenty-five years of archival research--including the author's discovery of previously unknown documents--newly found cases and court records. From January 1692 to January 1697 this history unfolds a nearly day-by-day narrative of the crisis as the citizens of New England experienced it.

Salem Story

Salem Story
Title Salem Story PDF eBook
Author Bernard Rosenthal
Publisher Cambridge University Press
Pages 306
Release 1993
Genre Literary Criticism
ISBN 9780521558204

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Salem Story engages the story of the Salem witch trials by contrasting an analysis of the surviving primary documentation with the way events of 1692 have been mythologised by our culture. Resisting the temptation to explain the Salem witch trials in the context of an inclusive theoretical framework, the book examines a variety of individual motives that converged to precipitate the witch-hunt. Of the many assumptions about the Salem witch trials, the most persistent is that they were instigated by a circle of hysterical girls. Through an analysis of what actually happened - by perusal of the primary materials with the 'close reading' approach of a literary critic - a different picture emerges, one where 'hysteria' inappropriately describes the logical, rational strategies of accusation and confession followed by the accusers, males and females alike.

Satan & Salem

Satan & Salem
Title Satan & Salem PDF eBook
Author Benjamin C. Ray
Publisher
Pages 252
Release 2017
Genre History
ISBN 9780813939926

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This book looks beyond single-factor interpretations to offer a far more nuanced view of why the Salem witch-hunt spiraled out of control. Rather than assigning blame to a single perpetrator, Ray assembles portraits of several major characters, each of whom had complex motives for accusing his or her neighbors. In this way, he reveals how religious, social, political, and legal factors all played a role in the drama.