Upham salem witch trials

He received a doctorate of history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Published in , instead of looking at the big picture or listing the chronology of the events, this book explores the personal lives of the people involved in the trials to form a sort of psychological profile of the colony at the time.

The chapters are divided by the roles each group of people played in the trials, such as the accusers, the victims, the clergy, the judges and the elite the wealthy outsiders and government officials. The book really helps the reader understand what life was like for these individuals at the time and puts their actions into perspective. It brings a much needed humanizing aspect to this complex topic.

Despite the fact that Foulds is not a historian and mostly writes on travel-related topics, she does a great job of delving deep into the lives of the people involved in the trials and exploring their personal stories. Published in , this book explores the psychology and social issues behind the Salem Witch Trials. The book theorizes that the trials were caused mostly by issues such as fear, religion and politics. The book explains that the trials were the result of a repressed society acting out its greatest fears and lashing out against those they deemed responsible for their suffering.

A Delusion of Satan also details the similarities between the Salem Witch Trials and modern day witch hunts such as the communist scare in the s and the Islamophobia brought about after September 11, Published in , this book suggests that the community of Salem was living in a constant state of fear at the time and this fear is what set the stage for the mass hysteria and the witch trials.

Norton argues that the people of Salem felt they were under attack and believed the Devil was responsible for their suffering. Salem residents at the time were suffering from numerous problems, from disease outbreaks to war to crop failures, and they believed at the time that witches and the devil were often behind such unfortunate events. The book is laid out chronologically to help readers understand these events as they happened.

Norton is a historian and a professor of American History at Cornell University. Published in , The Devil in Massachusetts takes the dialogue of the Salem Witch Trials court records and uses it to tell the story of the trials in a dramatic narrative. Many authors of newer books on the trials have cited The Devil in Massachusetts as one of the first well-researched and investigative books on the Salem Witch Trials.

Starkey, who died in , was a former newspaper editor who later became an author. The Crucible by Arthur Miller. The Crucible is a play that first premiered on Broadway in Although the play is set in Salem in and depicts the events of the Salem Witch Trials , it is actually an allegory for the Red Scare that took place in the United States in the s. In the Crucible, Miller was comparing the witch hunt in Salem to the witch hunt for Communists in the s. The Crucible is both a blessing and a curse for anyone interested in learning more about the Salem Witch Trials.

On the plus side, it was responsible for kick starting a renewed interest in the witch trials and it fueled the start of the tourism industry in Salem. Yet one major drawback is, because it is based on the trials many readers mistaken believe that the play is historically accurate and think many of the things that happened in the play actually happened in real life.

As a result, a lot of myths and misunderstandings have stemmed from this play as well as the movie adaptation released in Miller took a lot of liberties with the story, which he had the right to do as a playwright, and injected his own theories, ideas and events. Miller was inspired to write The Crucible after reading Charles W. The book was one of the first contemporary books published on the topic and is cited as an important historical book on the topic.

Originally published in French in and later translated to English, this novel is a fictionalized account of the life of Tituba, a slave of Reverend Samuel Parris, who was one of the first women accused of witchcraft during the Salem Witch Trials. This novel is interesting because Tituba is an often overlooked individual in the trials and this novel tries to remedy that by shining a light on her life.

In doing so, the novel explores the role of gender and race in the witch trials and challenges traditionally white, male dominated historical narratives. Get A Copy. Paperback , pages. Published July 21st by Dover Publications first published More Details Original Title. Other Editions Friend Reviews. To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up. To ask other readers questions about Salem Witchcraft , please sign up.

Lists with This Book. Community Reviews. Showing Average rating 3. Rating details. More filters. Sort order. Start your review of Salem Witchcraft. Kindle Originally published in , this book represents the scholarly research through records of the Salem Witch trials. Complete documents are reprinted and framed within knowledge of the area and period. An attempt to explain and put into context what happened is thoroughly done--to the point where the reader may feel they are on an endurance march.

Reading on the Kindle was helpful because you can word search and therefore bounce to the segments for the names and trials you're most interes Kindle Originally published in , this book represents the scholarly research through records of the Salem Witch trials. Reading on the Kindle was helpful because you can word search and therefore bounce to the segments for the names and trials you're most interested in learning about, or revisiting.

Great detail. Great resource. Lots of contemporary documented information. Jan 22, Scott Holstad rated it really liked it Shelves: history. This was truly an interesting, unique book. It's old as hell, yet a monster and more thorough than most things I've read. Which is where it comes close to failing. As fascinating as this book is, when you're dealing with a topic like this in a book of over pages, when books of similar value could conceivably be written at half that size or much less, while I love thoroughness more than most, it borders on tedium far too often.

That's probably good more than bad, because something this old an This was truly an interesting, unique book. That's probably good more than bad, because something this old and this important to this country's history needs to be well documented, but most people I know would probably have slit their wrists less than halfway through, because honestly, after awhile, it just seemed to become massively redundant. That being said, I like works such as that while most people I know don't.

So while I usually try to recommend or not recommend a book, but this one is hard, because I definitely would recommend it to historians and academics and people who can handle a myriad of details without falling asleep, but if you're not that type, I don't think it's for you, so I wouldn't recommend it in that case.

For me though, a quality experience! Boyer, Paul and Stephen Nissenbaum. Harvard University Press, Perley, Sidney. Taylor Trade Publishing, Gaskill, Malcolm. Goss, K. Greenwood Press, Upham, Charles W. Wiggin and Lunt, I have read and studied the witch trials for years.

I used to teach it to my students as an example of periodic social scapegoating. One time she attended a reunion of her descendants. She told me there were more than descendants there. My sister and I moved to Missouri after my dad passed away. This is great! I am researching to make props for Halloween. I like to make things very authentic, a little OCD. This was probably the most informative article I have come across and so interesting.