Witchcraft at Salem (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9780807616123)

Much has been written about the Salem witchcraft trials of 1692, and much has been misunderstood. "The more I studied the documents of what actually took place in the community, "writes Chadwich Hansen, "the more I found myself in opposition to the traditional interpretations. It seems to me that a serious consideration was in order." He argues, for instance, that witchcraft was actually practiced in seventeenth-century New England, as it was in Europe at the same time. Moreover, the behavior of the afflicted persons was not fraudulent, as some have claimed, but pathological: these people were hysterics in the clinical rather than the popular sense of the term. Further still, the clergy did not inspire or take advantage of the witch hunts as has been charged; on the contrary, they were among the chief opponents of the "mass hysteria". Library Journal called this book, "...The most important scholarly contribution to the literature of witchcraft to appear in many years."

Author: Chadwick Hansen
ISBN-10: 0807616125
ISBN-13: 9780807616123
Publisher: Braziller Books
Language: English
Published: 08/17/1985
Pages: 282
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 1.11lbs
Size: 8.50h x 5.50w x 0.75d