Order from a Major Online Bookstore
Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine
Save Your Time And Money
| AnyBook4Less.com | Order from a Major Online Bookstore |
|
| Home | Store List | FAQ | Contact Us | | ||
| Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine Save Your Time And Money |
||
 |
Title: In the Devil's Snare : The Salem Witchcraft Crisis of 1692 by Mary Beth Norton ISBN: 0-375-40709-X Publisher: Knopf Pub. Date: 10 September, 2002 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $30.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.5 (14 reviews)
Rating: 2
Summary: Content: A/Form: D-
Comment: When I saw this book reviewed in a national newspaper, I thought, that's a book for me: the Salem witchcraft affair never ceases to fascinate me and this author has an interesting hypothesis. Clearly, Ms. Norton has a detailed grasp of her subject matter, as well as keen lateral thinking. She has put the accusations, examinations and trials into their social context, drawing compelling parallels between events on the frontier (Indian raids) with those in Salem (bewitched young women). The amount of research apparent in this book is staggering. It is all very interesting stuff.
Alas, this book is so dry (to use another reviewer's word -- and would that I'd read his review before buying the book) it is barely readable. Just a few pages into the first chapter and I realized I'd made a big mistake, but I decided to sweat it out for awhile to see if it got any better. It didn't. Finally on page 100, I gave up and skimmed the rest, reading passages here and there to confirm that it was more (and more) of the same. The summary chapters at the end were a little better -- but not much.
The main problem is that Ms. Norton has taken an interesting idea and flogged it to death. The book could have been half its length and had a greater impact: less, in this case, would have been much more. Second, the constant quotes interrupt the flow of the text, and, to be blunt, Ms. Norton's text needs all the help it can get when it comes to flow. (Ms. Norton also seems to have passive-construction disease. "As was discussed previously" is dull in a doctoral dissertation, in a book intended for mass consumption -- and this one was, I assume -- it's sudden death.)
Third, interspersing 17th Century spelling with 21st Century spelling is jarring and, after about ten pages, REALLY annoying. It is clear that Ms. Norton has read these texts, she doesn't need to dazzle us with that fact; it would have been preferable for her to either paraphrase (with proper notations, of course) or, when a quote was absolutely necessary to illustrate a point, to update the spelling.
Take this example from page 90: The fishermen, too, hurried to leave, "supposinge it not boote to stay here against such a multitude of enemyes." (not boote?) or this one: Frontier dwellers accurately predicted the consequences of Waldron's deceit, anticipating "Suddain Spolye" that would leave them "in a More danger[ous] Condision" than before. WHAT? The first time I read the latter sentence, I thought Suddain Spoyle was a Native American whose introduction I'd missed.
Oddly, on page 92, Ms. Norton quotes one James Roules who uses 20th Century spelling. Was Mr. Roules living in a forward time warp or did Ms. Norton update the spelling in that passage, and, if the latter, why not throughout?
I hope that the "other Americanists and the other women in the Cornell history department", to whom Ms. Norton dedicated this book, enjoyed it. But, Ms. Norton, writing an erudite and detailed study for one's colleagues on the history faculty is quite a different animal from writing for those of us (dare I say it?) in the real world, who, if your book is going to be a financial success, are your audience.
Does that mean the material has to be dumbed-down? No, not in the least. But, neither is it necessary to hide an excellent hypothesis behind pages of adademic balderdash and blather.
Content: A/Form: D-
Rating: 4
Summary: well researched and fascinating, but slow going
Comment: I agree with other reviewers who said this was not an easy read. The book is heavily footnoted and filled with quotes rendered in late-17th century English. And, of course, the subject matter is disturbing and unsettling. Nevertheless, I'm glad I read it.
This book focuses on the infamous Salem witch trials...one of the more unfortunate periods of early American history. But unlike other books on the subject, it focuses on a previously overlooked aspect of the trials--how the ongoing French and native american raids against English settlers likely influenced both the accusers and accused.
The fact is, many of the individuals involved in the trials had either experienced loss of property or family members during a raid, or had in some way profited (or been suspected of profiting) through dealings with native americans. The psychological toll of these skirmishes must have been heavy...and given the difficulties that some of the young accusers experienced (one girl lost over a dozen family members in a single raid) it's no wonder that they may have started taking their anger out against potentially guilty citizens in the only way left open to them.
This is a well-researched book filled with a lot of details about the period. And whether you agree or disagree with the author's conclusion, she does raise some points that are difficult to ignore.
Rating: 4
Summary: An interesting approach
Comment: The Salem witchcraft hysteria that began in 1692 has for 300 years been the subject of much discussion, interpretation, and reinterpretation. In her book, Norton offers a new explanation of this widely discussed episode. She assigns central importance to fears caused by the Indian Wars and finds connections between the terrors of American's Second Indian War and the colonial authorities' endorsement of the trials. Norton argues that massacres of colonists by during the Second Indian War and the colonial government's failure to effectively counter such killings were the main precipitators of the witchcraft trials. Using newly available materials from the trial records, letters and diaries, she argues that the complexity of political, military and religious factors led to the outbreak of hysterical fits that ended in the infamous trials.
The contemporary Puritan worldview insisted that the military failures of such notable officials as chief judge William Stroughton and Sir William Phips indicated God's displeasure with the New England colonies. As Norton demonstrates, the settlers saw the First and Second Indian Wars and their resulting loss of prosperity as God's punishment for their sins. In April 1692, as these losses mounted, several teenage girls began having fits that were attributed to the devil, to witches and to Indians. The colonists thus found themselves being punished both by visible spirits (Indians) and invisible ones (the devil). In an unusual turn of events, the magistrates of the village took the testimony of these women who normally were not given any political or judicial authority and began the trials. Furthermore, many of the Salem accusers had suffered personal losses at the hands of brutal native tribes. In her analysis of war fears and spiritual hysteria, the author concludes that the state's leaders were all too willing to believe allegations of witchcraft, which they convinced themselves was evidence of Satan's rather than their own incompetence.
Norton provides a detailed account of the ways 17th-century men and women would have thought about the terrible events. Norton does not simply write another history of the crisis, but she looks at the unfair trails from a 17th-century perspective. She quickly uncovers a number of historical threads that have not previously been explored by scholars. Norton, who is a feminist scholar, blames the Massachusetts governor, councils, and judges for the executions of innocent Salem "witches."
In this book Norton provides a detailed and well-researched description of the era as well as historical background information. I do not know whether I should agree with all of Norton's arguments, but she certainly raises some interesting questions that one cannot ignore. I would recommend Norton's book to everyone who wants to learn more about the Salem witch hunt from a new perspective. Previous knowledge on the Salem witch hunt crisis would be an advantage when reading this book.
 |
Title: Salem Possessed; The Social Origins of Witchcraft by Paul S. Boyer, Stephen Nissenbaum ISBN: 0674785266 Publisher: Harvard Univ Pr Pub. Date: March, 1976 List Price(USD): $17.95 |
 |
Title: The Devil in the Shape of a Woman: Witchcraft in Colonial New England by Carol F. Karlsen ISBN: 0393317595 Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company Pub. Date: April, 1998 List Price(USD): $15.95 |
 |
Title: The Salem Witch Trials Reader by Frances Hill ISBN: 030680946X Publisher: DaCapo Press Pub. Date: 01 October, 2000 List Price(USD): $18.50 |
 |
Title: A Delusion of Satan: The Full Story of the Salem Witch Trials by Frances Hill, Karen Armstrong ISBN: 0306811596 Publisher: DaCapo Press Pub. Date: June, 2002 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
 |
Title: Salem-Village Witchcraft: A Documentary Record of Local Conflict in Colonial New England by Paul Boyer, Stephen Nissenbaum ISBN: 1555531652 Publisher: Northeastern University Press Pub. Date: December, 1997 List Price(USD): $18.95 |
Thank you for visiting www.AnyBook4Less.com and enjoy your savings!
Copyright� 2001-2021 Send your comments
