Customer Reviews

Riding the Nightmare: Women and Witchcraft from the Old World to Colonial Salem

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[Irritated because I was almost finished with a lengthy review of this so-called book when a cat stepped on my keyboard and said review disappeared....]
This book is nothing but JUNK. Unmitigated junk. Bibliographical items abound, but of footnotes there are none. The writing is bad, words needing definition are ignored, spelling errors are everywhere [it's a 'witches' sabbat', not 'sabbath'] and they seem not to know that ever since the world became patristic, our language reflected that and, except in cases of languages that designate specific words to be either masculine or feminine, patristic words are universally used [and still are to a large degree], and even the most recent attempt to use inclusive language has a long way to go -- I know women who actually OPPOSE this!.
There's more. Major issues/topics/personages that normally take a good-sized book to explain are tossed aside in this "book" by mentioning them in passing in one paragraph -- or, worse, one sentence, i.e., the Cathars, the Waldensians, the Crusades, the Black Death/Bubonic Plague, the divided Papacy that long preceded the Reformation, in influence of Eleanor of Aquitaine [whose long imprisonment by her husband, the KING, is never mentioned, but he knew how to shut her up], and on and on.
Of the bibliography, I seriously doubt that even 1/4 of it was ever actually read by the authors of this so-called "history", and of whatever WAS read, most must have been misunderstood.
Then there's the worst of the worst -- the book never so much as mentions THE INQUISITION! It's not even given a place in the index! And it is impossible to study the early period of persecutions of people [alleged witches included] without having a good working knowledge of this period. The word "inquisitors" is used, but never defined, and hence never linked with the Inquisition proper. The mention the Malleus Maleficarum, implying as they do so that it was well read [by those who could read] for some centuries to come, but then floated out into the ether. It's not in the ether. The last I knew, Dover Books was keeping it in print, and as for me, it's sitting in one of my bookcases, and I've READ IT!
The authors are neither historians nor are they people who understand what the job of the historian is. I'm glad I didn't pay much for the book; fortunately today is trash day and it's going out along with a bunch of turkey bones and empty cookie boxes.
I did notice one interesting coincidence -- when the esteemed Rev. Parris discovered several young girls behaving "oddly", one was [of course] his daughter, and another was a very young Abigail Williams, who not only continued her strange behavior, but also in the course of the hysteria named numerous people as being "witches". Perhaps there's a familial relationship here.
But famililal relationship or not, nothing excuses the bulk of unmitigated crap that comprises this book. I only gave it one star because there wasn't any way to give it negative stars. It's not worth a quarter -- or, for that matter, even a dime would be too much to pay for this junk.
Save those pennies and DON'T BUY THIS BOOK! Buy a soda. Buy a candy bar. Buy a burger somewhere. There's all worth far more than this mishmosh is. How it ever got published in the first place I'll never understand.
Meantime, it's getting to be time to take out the trash, and I need to make sure that's where this book ends up TODAY!