The Salem Witch Trials: A Day-by-Day Chronicle of a Community Under Siege

Not a story but a daily “journal type” of information on the events that took place. If you are just getting into the witch trials,I would hold off on this and/or save it for later read. as you learn more this book will “make more sense” to you thenBut if you are more advanced in the trails, with the people, time period, language, etc, etc, then this is definitely a great read!!

Excellant chronological review of the Salem trials. The author starts with a very detailed description of the history leading up to the actual trials. She gives you a great feel for the many events that shaped peoples minds, attitudes and emotions that built the foundation of fragility, distrust and paranoia in Salem in 1691 & 1692. The author then rolls out the meat of the story and shows how the most mundane thing started this runaway train of confusion that snowballed so fast, Salem was engulfed in the whole affair before anyone really understood what was happening. People never looked at anyone the same way after this. It was surprising and fascinating to learn that people actually took advantage of the "opportunity" to get revenge on others for the most minute reasons. This episode really highlights the frailty of the human animal. The author also gives you a good look into the personalities of the people involved. You see them change as time goes on. They start with the concept that they know whats going on and how to resolve it. Then, just as quickly, you see them get lost in something that is incomprehensible to them and start to question everything they believe in. You realize early on that there is nothing unique or unusual about them. Their just like you and me and we probably wouldn't act much different were it us. People used the Bible heavily throughout this time period as a way to combat the evils they believed existed. Whats interesting is that if you read carefully, the quotes used throughout the book mirror the events that are unfolding. These Biblical quotes seem to tell the story as it's unfolding before your eyes and you find yourself being an armchair QB, yelling at these people to follow their own ultra-religious views and all this evil would simply go away. This book is very heavy in details. There is an immense amount of information; events, dates, places and names that cannot be read, digested and understood easily. For myself, I find that books of this nature should be read quickly, not bothering too much with the details. Wait a couple weeks, then go back and read it again. You'll understand it much better and the finer points will not seem so overwhelming. Kind of like building up a tolerance to information overload. The book is truely fascinating and digs into many area's that make it a complete work. Geography (yes, it's more important than you make think), international & domestic politics, law and of course psychology just to name a few. Anyone interested in this type of history will not find many authors better at explaining reals events than Marilynne Roach. Another great thing is that everything she writes about can be reaserched independently and you can get caught up in this story very easily. Lot of late nights in the library.

I am really pleased that there are so many positive reviews of this book, as I believe that it is the one book you need to read first, if you are ever in a position where you need to study the subject. This book may not answer all the questions, but it will unquestionably give you what you need to detect the mistaken answers you may find in other books.The Salem Witch incident is one of the most mysterious in the history of 17th century Protestant religion in both America and in Europe. There were cases of supposed witchcraft up to as recently as 1689 (Salem event occurred in 1692), but no similar incident involving this number of people ever happened anywhere else in Protestant Europe or America. The theories about the causes have centered around searching for scapegoats, perverse understanding of Christianity, and mass hysteria. The only one of those theories which have any semblence of credibility is the role of what we now call "hysteria". There are descriptions of symptoms of those affected, such as paralysis and blocking of the esophagus which are precisely described in Freud and Breuer's classic work on hysteria.The author goes to great pains to avoid theorizing about any underlying causes of how the event started, how it came to an end, or most relevantly, why the outbreak was so virulent. She just presents the facts, largely as the people at that time actually saw them.The conclusion one tends to draw is that this was a community in high anxiety from possible Indian attacks, with a government in disarray, and an economic slump due to the paralyzed government and squabbles. The accusations were largely done by young women, but they were investigated by civil authorities, not by clerical ones. All the trials were conducted by civil authorities, as were the judges and jury. The clerics were largely on the sidelines, trying with little success to warn that the evidence on which people were being accused and convicted was flawed. Worst of all, the leading cleric for the Massachusetts Bay Colony, Increase Mather, the president of Harvard College, was in England when the events broke out. By the time he arrived it was difficult to rein them in.There are many other excellent books on the subject, but this is the best reference for the details regarding the case, how it started, and why it developed the way it did. Even if you feel no need to read the book from cover to cover, it is a very good reference to consult as you read of events in other books.

This is a resource with a story to tell: the bystander who literally only came to watch and then was indited, the deaf person who missed her reprieve and the sea captain hero who rescued his wife are but three that spring to mind. The only comparable book that I have read was a sociology text detailing how Nazi party power was freely delivered by logical sensible communities genuinely believing it to be the best thing to do. Others look to these events in the 1680s as a symbol of the anti-communist searches of the 1950s, and I dare say there will depressingly be other parallels to be drawn in the future.Read on the Kindle Touch the formatting is solid, thorough, and logical which would enable advanced history studies to be taken up with this as a text when using the notemaking box and the search this item box. Footnotes are clearly and consistently linked and backtrackable, the index and chapter divisions bullet proof and the chronological approach simply amazingly enlightening. This is how e-reading is supposed to work.If you want cute dialogue go elsewhere, but make no mistake this is storytelling at its best. Be scared that it's all factually resourced events that really took place. Be scared out of your wits to understand how a few beliefs may be manipulated to hold an entire countryside community by the short and curlys. Shall we learn by example how hard it was to oppose? I wonder...

Brought for my mum she loves it!

Ok

This (sometimes) day-to-day chronicle of the Salem Witch Trials pulls in outside events - such as Indian and French massacres in nearby jurisdictions - to outline what was a very perilous and fearful time for our New England ancestors. It was fascinating to hear Roach tie in accusers who had been deeply traumatized in these attacks with their "visions" of the devil which resembled the attacking tribes.

A fine combination of serious scholarship and readability.