The Devil in Massachusetts: A Modern Enquiry into the Salem Witch Trials

I learn why they believed in witches . It's not a fable it is a history lesson learned through a story . Fictional history . I lived near Salem Massachusetts and I'm familiar with the fables . This book enlightened me . Pretty good read !

It's a cliché, but I literally could not put this book down once I started it. It's beautifully written, the bare-bones facts fleshed out with details of the appearance and atmosphere of 17th-century Salem. The inexorable and horrifying progress of the witch hunt, which, once begun, became an unstoppable machine, fed by gossip, self-interest, and religious repression, is recounted in day-by-day detail, focusing on the characters of those involved on all sides. It sometimes shows its age--it was originally published in 1950--but very few books today show such mastery of style in historical writing. It was an influential book in its time, serving as source material for Arthur Miller in his play "The Crucible," which he wrote as a cautionary parable about the figurative witchhunting of the McCarthy era. It's a tale of a time and place when persons could be imprisoned without benefit of counsel for indefinite periods, when a word of protest could bring accusations of treason, when powerful, well-connected people could influence the course of justice, when the forces of religious and political intolerance walked abroad in the land. Does this sound familiar?

I found Marion Starkey's presentation of the Salem Witch Trials very mind opening and thought provoking. She gives footnote and reference after reference proving that she was not just spouting this information off the top of her head, she gave a well researched and developed presentation of the materials she researched and I found that that is more than you can say about other books that have been written. She has gathered much evidence to support her positions on the Salem Witch Trials, that is someone who cares about her work. I recommend this book to anyone who likes to think for themselves and think outside the box.

I first read, "The Devil in Massachusetts" in the late1960s as part of a colonial history course. Having also an interest in psychology at that time, I was impressed with the story of the mass-hysteria and the book made a lasting impression on me.I re-read the book following a visit to Salem, Massachusetts this summer. I had noticed the same mass-hysteria involving false charges of child-sexual abuse along with the recovered memory movement during the 1980s an 1990s. Although Starkey necessarily presents her tale against a background of religion and religious delusions, the contempory mass-hysteria has no apparent connection to religion but the reactions of the public (society) shows a distrubing duplication of the process of hysterical contagion. Once a "cause", whether it be sexual abuse, gun control or other "hot-button" issue, is pushed into the limelight and kept there by fanatics of whatever stripe, abetted and given publicity by the media, the society (public) has almost a religious need to curtail critical thinking, accept accusation as proven fact, believe stories of impossible events and destroy their fellow citizens without compunction. And that is the horror that is demonstrated by Starkey's work; and the naivete of the old, standby reassurances, "It couldn't happen in this day and age", "It could never happen here".

Starkey does an outstanding job placing the witchcraft scare of 1692 into a narrative form, which makes it easy for any reader to fully understand. Starkey uses mostly primary sources and has a large bibliography, which makes great material for the researcher or casual reader. It is amazing how a village could believe a gaggle of girls who accused hundreds of innocent people of witchcraft that led to the execution of 20 people. The story is told in this captivating book.