Delaware County District Library

The witches, Salem, 1692, Stacy Schiff

eng

Includes bibilographical references (pages 481-482) and index

platesillustrations

index present

non fiction

The witches

bibliography

Stacy Schiff

Salem, 1692

The panic began early in 1692, when a minister's niece began to writhe and roar. It spread quickly, confounding the most educated men and prominent politicians in the colony. It ended less than a year later, but not before nineteen men and women had been hanged and an elderly man crushed to death. Along with suffrage and Prohibition, the Salem witch trials represent one of the few moments when women played the central role in American history. Drawing masterfully on the archives, Stacy Schiff introduces us to the strains on a Puritan adolescent's life and to the authorities whose delicate agendas were at risk. She illuminates the demands of a vigorous faith, and the vulnerability of settlements adrift from the mother country. Bringing early American anxieties to the fore to align them with our own, Schiff shows us how, in an era of religious provocations, crowdsourcing, and invisible enemies, this enthralling story makes more sense than ever