Salem Possessed: The Social Origins of Witchcraft [Paperback]

Paul Boyer (Author), Stephen Nissenbaum (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 1974 | ISBN-10: 0674785266 | ISBN-13: 978-0674785328

The stark immediacy of what happened in 1692 has obscured the complex web of human passion which had been growing for more than a generation before building toward the climactic witch trials. "Salem Possessed explores the lives of the men and women who helped spin that web and who in the end found themselves entagled in it.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Provides an admirable illustration of the general rule that, in Old and New England alike, much of the best sociological history of the twentieth century has only been made possible by the antiquarian and genealogical interests of the nineteenth… This sensitive, intelligent, and well-written book will certainly revive interest in the terrible happenings at Salem.
--Keith Thomas (New York Review of Books )

The authors' whole approach to the Salem disaster is canny, rewarding, and sure to fascinate readers interested in that aberrant affair. (The Atlantic )

This is an 'inner history' of Salem Village that aims to raise the events of 1692 from melodrama to tragedy… It is a large achievement. This book is progressive history at its best, with brilliant insights, well-organized evidence, maps, and footnotes at the bottom of the page.
--Cedric B. Cowing (American Historical Review )

This short book is a solid contribution to the understanding of the 1692 witch trials. The authors use impressively rich demographic detail to support the thesis that the witch trials are best explained as symptoms of typical social tensions in provincial towns at the time. According to Boyer and Nissenbaum, Salem villagers played roles determined by economic, geographic, and status interests.
--Richard Ekman (Canadian Historical Review )

An important, imaginative book that brings new insights to the study of the 1692 witchcraft outbreak in Massachusetts. Building on Charles Upham's Salem Witchcraft (1867), Boyer and Nissenbaum explore decades of community tension and conflict in order to explain why Salem was the focus of this episode. The authors reveal a complex set of relationships between persons allied with the growing mercantile interests of Salem Town and those linked to the subsistence-based economy of outlying Salem Village.
--Carol Karlsen (Journal of Women in Culture and Society )

A provocative book. Drawing upon an impressive range of unpublished local sources, Paul Boyer and Stephen Nissenbaum provide a challenging new interpretation of the outbreak of witchcraft in Salem Village. They argue that previous historians erroneously divorced the tragic events of 1692 from the long-term development of the village and therefore failed to realize that the witch trials were simply one particularly violent chapter in a series of local controversies dating back to the 1660s. In their reconstruction of the socio-economic conditions that contributed to the intense factionalism in Salem Village, Boyer and Nissenbaum have made a major contribution to the social history of colonial New England… [They] have provided us with a first-rate discussion of factionalism in a seventeenth-century New England community. Their handling of economic, familial, and spatial relationships within Salem Village is both sophisticated and imaginative.
--T. H. Breen (William and Mary Quarterly )

An illuminating and imaginative interpretation…of the social and moral state of Salem village in 1692. A sensitive, intelligent, and well-written book. (New York Review of Books )

A large achievement. This book is progressive history at its very best, with brilliant insights. (American Historical Review )

Salem Possessed is a provocative book. Drawing upon an impressive range of unpublished local sources, Paul Boyer and Stephen Nissenbaum provide a challenging new interpretation of the outbreak of witchcraft in Salem Village… A major contribution to the social history of colonial New England… Sophisticated and imaginative. (William and Many Quarterly )

About the Author

Paul Boyer, Merle Curti Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

Product Details

• Paperback: 231 pages
• Publisher: Harvard University Press (February 1974)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0674785266
• ISBN-13: 978-0674785328
• Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 0.7 x 8.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (25 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #148,331 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

56 of 62 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Important but flawed July 4, 2004

By Zeldock

Format:Paperback

When I was a history grad student in the mid-1980s, Salem Possessed was widely viewed as a masterpiece of the "new" social history, i.e., the history of the lives of everyday people, as opposed to major political events and cultural high points. In it, scholars Boyer and Nissenbaum take the then-standard Salem witchcraft narrative and subject it to reinterpretation on the basis of patterns and trends they see in the social history of Salem and Salem Village (now Danvers). Essentially, they argue that the witchcraft accusations and prosecutions were an unconscious (or perhaps conscious) means by which the poorer and more agrarian segment of the Salem Village population got back at the wealthier and more worldly types.

As social history of Salem and Danvers in the 17th century, much of the book is fascinating and insightful. However, as an explanation of the witchcraft crisis, the book is, in my opinion, implausible. Too often, the authors seem to be reading into the data, finding evidence of discord where little or none exists. As one example, they interpret the bare negotiating positions of Salem Village and Samuel Parris regarding the hiring of Parris as minister to evidence aggressive overreaching on Parris's part, without any comparison to the agreements typically reached by other towns and ministers. More importantly, it's simply very hard to believe that, based on the types of disagreements the authors claim to have existed, people would hate their neighbors enough to throw about accusations of capital crimes on a vast scale.

Salem Possessed stands today as another in a long line of unsatisfying attempts to make sense of the witchcraft crisis. Until the publication in 2002 of Mary Beth Norton's In the Devil's Snare (a work I found much more persuasive), Salem Possessed was perhaps the most influential scholarly interpretation of those events. (For example, its theories formed the basis of the PBS series Three Sovereigns for Sarah.) In my opinion, Salem Possessed has since been shown to be a wild goose chase.

24 of 28 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent, thorough book August 18, 2000

By hbcarter

Format:Paperback

I was actually assigned this book for an anthropology class, but I couldn't put it down. Boyer and Nissenbaum look at every possible contributing factor to the witch craze that took hold of Salem in the late 17th century. They are careful to present all of the data upon which they based their hypotheses, allowing the reader to judge the validity of their claims. Salem Possessed provides an enlightening look at the pressures (social, economic, religious) that affected all of the villagers, and manages not to vilify any particular person.

This book's strength is it's thoroughness, but it is also it's major drawback. It can be difficult to keep track of all the names, households and dates. However, it is well worth the effort, and I heartily recommend this book.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars a complete picture of a time and place October 10, 2002

By Michael J. Cowan

Format:Paperback

This is a wonderful book. Boyer and Neissenbaum take you to society and the time right before the witch trials took place. They give you all the information you need to feel what life was like there and to understand the underlying tensions and disputes, jealousies and arrogance. Things were changing. Some people wanted --and benefited from the changes-- others didn't want, and were antagonistic to, the changes. The ideal of the community was being tested by economic opportunity, which was fostering economic greed. An increasing stratified society was coming into being. Meanwhile, there was no mechanism available for petty disputes to be resolved via the courts or other public venues -- this is just a short list of the variety of problems that sat unresolved and which eventually broke loose in the hysteria of a witch hunting. This is an amazingly complex and fascinating story--the research and scholarship here is extraordinary. If you want to know what lead up to the witch trials this is the book you want to read.