Preface Salem Village in the Seventeenth Century: A Chronology Abbreviations Used in the Notes Prologue: What Happened in 1692 1. 1692: Some New Perspectives 2. In Quest of Community, 1639-1687 3. Afflicted Village, 1688-1697 4. Salem Town and Salem Village: The Dynamics
Paul Boyer was Merle Curti Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Stephen Nissenbaum is a cultural historian.
An illuminating and imaginative interpretation…of the social and
moral state of Salem village in 1692. Provides an admirable
illustration of the general rule that, in Old and New England
alike, much of the best sociological history of the twentieth
century has only been made possible by the antiquarian and
genealogical interests of the nineteenth… This sensitive,
intelligent, and well-written book will certainly revive interest
in the terrible happenings at Salem.
*New York Review of Books*
A provocative book. Drawing upon an impressive range of unpublished
local sources, Paul Boyer and Stephen Nissenbaum provide a
challenging new interpretation of the outbreak of witchcraft in
Salem Village. They argue that previous historians erroneously
divorced the tragic events of 1692 from the long-term development
of the village and therefore failed to realize that the witch
trials were simply one particularly violent chapter in a series of
local controversies dating back to the 1660s. In their
reconstruction of the socio-economic conditions that contributed to
the intense factionalism in Salem Village, Boyer and Nissenbaum
have made a major contribution to the social history of colonial
New England… [They] have provided us with a first-rate discussion
of factionalism in a seventeenth-century New England community.
Their handling of economic, familial, and spatial relationships
within Salem Village is both sophisticated and imaginative.
*William and Mary Quarterly*
This is an ‘inner history’ of Salem Village that aims to raise the
events of 1692 from melodrama to tragedy… It is a large
achievement. This book is progressive history at its best, with
brilliant insights, well-organized evidence, maps, and footnotes at
the bottom of the page.
*American Historical Review*
The authors’ whole approach to the Salem disaster is canny,
rewarding, and sure to fascinate readers interested in that
aberrant affair.
*The Atlantic*
This short book is a solid contribution to the understanding of the
1692 witch trials. The authors use impressively rich demographic
detail to support the thesis that the witch trials are best
explained as symptoms of typical social tensions in provincial
towns at the time. According to Boyer and Nissenbaum, Salem
villagers played roles determined by economic, geographic, and
status interests.
*Canadian Historical Review*
An important, imaginative book that brings new insights to the
study of the 1692 witchcraft outbreak in Massachusetts. Building on
Charles Upham’s Salem Witchcraft (1867), Boyer and Nissenbaum
explore decades of community tension and conflict in order to
explain why Salem was the focus of this episode. The authors reveal
a complex set of relationships between persons allied with the
growing mercantile interests of Salem Town and those linked to the
subsistence-based economy of outlying Salem Village.
*Journal of Women in Culture and Society*
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