Salem Possessed

About this course:

The Salem Witchcraft Trials are still one of the most studied episodes in early American history. Several dozen books and articles attest to continuing efforts to explain how a belief in the existence of witches could overwhelm an entire town, leading to the hangings of a number of citizens. In this course, we look at the trials from the perspective of one of the most influential books, Salem Possessed, by Paul Boyer and Stephen Nissenbaum. Exploring their interpretation gives us the opportunity to think about how historians do history. By focusing on the town of Salem itself, the book shows how early settlement patterns may have led to the complications and chaos of 1692. We also read a collection of short articles published twenty-five years later, written by other historians of early America who assessed the value of the work Boyer and Nissenbaum did. Hopefully, these articles will give us the opportunity to evaluate the work ourselves. Suggested book: Salem Possessed, Harvard University Press (1974).