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Jan 04, 2017DorisWaggoner rated this title 4.5 out of 5 stars
I was so impressed with Schiff's "Cleopatra" that I expected more from this book. It's just as well researched, and for the most part well written. However, even with the list of major characters at the beginning, it's very hard to keep track of who's who, and even the chronology. I have ancestors who, two years before this event, were massacred by the French and Indians in New York, with no mention, in a great deal of reading, about witchcraft. So one reason for reading it was to learn why Salem, also "infested" by French and Indians, became the setting for witchcraft. I didn't learn the answer--it wasn't Schiff's question. I do think her focus on the power manifested during these few months by women and young girls is a valid one. Not a single accusation was against a father or a son, though every other family or social relationship was the target of an accusation. Interestingly, those who accused didn't hang, but those who were accused. And the after effects lasted for generations, even to the present day tourism in Salem. The fact, not trivial, that Massachusetts had the highest literacy rate in the world in 1692, is relevant, as is the fact that the Puritans had very few books to choose among besides the Bible. We don't read the Bible as demonic, but they did. The other relevant fact is that the Puritans, like the Pilgrims, a very different group, left England for New England because of religious persecution. They believed they had to behave a certain way in order to create a successful society. When that began to fall apart, who were they going to blame?