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In the Devil's Snare

the Salem Witchcraft Crisis of 1692
Dec 05, 2009GailRoger rated this title 3 out of 5 stars
I didn't so much read this as dip in and out of it. It's a meticulously researched book written by yet another descendant of an accused witch in Salem and its surrounding areas. Mary Beth Norton is an academic at Cornell (I think) and is also descended from some of the accusers and judges. (They were all pretty much intermarried; there weren't that many of them as they had only been in America for three or four generations in 1692.) Norton addresses the existing theories for the cause of the hysteria, and adds one of her own: nearly everyone involved had some sort of connection with the Indian Wars of the time, which had resulted in slaughters and kidnappings to the north in Maine. A good book for learning more about the historical context of this famous witch hunt.