Justice At Salem: Reexamining The Witch Trials [Paperback]

William H. Cooke (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 2, 2009

For too long the accepted view of the Salem witch trials has been that the events were caused either by fraud and/or hysteria and that no witchcraft was practiced by the accused. The religious leaders of the day stirred up zealotry and the justice system was either too corrupt or blind to properly administer justice. As a result, all of the convictions were a grave miscarriage of justice. However, there was actual witchcraft practiced in colonial New England and it is likely, although impossible to say with certainty, that its effects were more than merely psychological. And while miscarriages of justice were carried out, especially when the judges abandoned traditional legal protections in order to satisfy the wishes of the masses, guilty people were still among the condemned. As for the religious leaders, for the most part they generally advocated caution in the prosecution of suspected witches. Much of what people know, or think that they know, about the events at Salem in 1692 is wrong. Self-styled experts often make mistakes about many of the basic facts and draw conclusions that are not justified. The witch trials may hold a special place in the imaginations of many people, however, often imagination warps judgment, understanding, and memory. Justice at Salem attempts to set the historical record straight and using the evidence available draws new conclusions about what happened that fateful year in Massachusetts.

Product Details

• Paperback: 166 pages
• Publisher: Undertaker Press (October 2, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1595943226
• ISBN-13: 978-1595943224
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.4 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,659,069 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I live in Annapolis, Md. My hobbies include running and sailing.
I am available to speak about the Salem witch trials and other subjects.
Please visit my website at http://www.falklands.org.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Phenomenal and Eye Opening Study on Salem, December 25, 2010

By 

Thomas Huff "(BlownPotential.com)" (Bethesda MD) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Justice At Salem: Reexamining The Witch Trials (Paperback)

This is a fantastic little book that presents an in depth study of the Salem witch trials in 1692 and flips the persecution-of-the-innocent cliché on its head. Although the author doesn't dispute that some innocents may have been hanged (not burned as another cliché might have you believe), he instead focus on the evidence supporting the practice of said craft. (This, of course, is not to say he supports the idea that witchcraft is either real or fake, but only that it was practiced.) Mr. Cooke does this in a well-organized and easy to follow manner by narrowing the focus down to five specific trails which he feels offer the most interesting studies. Each trail occupies its own chapter in the book, weaving effective character driven narratives that could hold up as standalone stories. It should be noted that the author is a practicing lawyer and thus highly qualified to examine and scrutinize such material and he remains both informative and impartial throughout. The book is also extensively footnoted (437 citations to be exact) showing the effort and research put into this.

After reading this, my somewhat passive notions of what happened in Salem were turned upside-down; my belief that their society operated like a Monty Python sketch was transformed into a much clearer understanding of the infinitely more compelling story that actually transpired there.

Highly Recommend.

7 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Not for me..., March 14, 2011

By 

Kelly K - See all my reviews

This review is from: Justice At Salem: Reexamining The Witch Trials (Paperback)

First up, I have never written a review on Amazon before, but this book was so bad that I was moved to do so. The idea of the book is really interesting - to reexamine a few of the Salem witch trials with the perspective that maybe witchcraft WAS being practiced, rather than the long held assumption that it was a group of innocent people who were put to death. My main problem is that it stretches credulity into just plain wrong territory. Cooke claims for instance that one of the alleged witches, a slave called Tituba, may have been taking "psychedelic drugs" at the time she confessed to witchcraft, on the basis that she had spent some time in Barbados (??). Anyway, he then asks if we should dismiss her confession on the basis that she (may have been) on drugs? No says Cooke, because "to do so would be to reflect a cultural bias ... that there is one reality, and then fantasy... But there is not one reality. There are many different realities". Er no, there is one reality, and then there is a bunch of made up stuff, and people who can't tell the difference shouldn't be writing books about it.