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Emerson W. Baker. A Storm of Witchcraft: The Salem Trials and the American Experience .

2015; Oxford University Press; Volume: 120; Issue: 5 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1093/ahr/120.5.1880

1937-5239

Scott D. Seay,

Vietnamese History and Culture Studies

Emerson W. Baker’s fine book on the Salem witchcraft trials is the latest volume in the Pivotal Moments in American History series by Oxford University Press. In the introduction, he consciously admits that “rather than proposing new interpretations of the events”; he “tries to make sense of the voluminous literature on the trials while also looking at the larger context” (9). Thus, his book principally is a much-needed synthetic treatment of one of the most studied episodes in American history. Following a very creative introduction, Baker offers in chapter 1 a summary of the 1692–1693 trials based on the bare facts recognized by nearly all historians. This summary relies on a fresh reading of the primary sources, supported by the most important secondary scholarship. In chapters 2 and 3, Baker narrates how tensions both internal and external to Salem contributed to anxieties that would lead to the witchcraft hysteria. Relying on the well-argued “declension thesis,” he demonstrates how crises like the Restoration (1660), the Halfway Covenant (1662), repeated wars with Native Americans (1675–1678), the Reforming Synod (1679), the revocation of the Massachusetts Bay charter (1684), and the Andros government (1680s) fell with unusual force on Salem. He describes the underlying social, economic, and theological tensions between the early inhabitants of Salem Town and those in the outlying areas: North Fields, South Fields, Marblehead, and especially Salem Farms. Thus, long before the witchcraft trials, Salem had developed into a community of deep and largely unacknowledged divisions, widely believed to be of demonic origin.