Get Free Shipping on orders over $79
A Fever in Salem : A New Interpretation of the New England Witch Trials - Laurie Winn Carlson

A Fever in Salem

A New Interpretation of the New England Witch Trials

By: Laurie Winn Carlson

Paperback | 21 August 2000

At a Glance

Paperback


$21.99

or 4 interest-free payments of $5.50 with

Ships in 3 to 5 business days

In the late winter and early spring of 1692, residents of Salem Village, Massachusetts, began to suffer from strange physical and mental maladies. The randomness of the victims, and unusual symptoms that were seldom duplicated, led residents to suspect an otherworldly menace. Their suspicions and fears eventually prompted the infamous Salem Witch Trials. While most historians have concentrated their efforts on the accused, Laurie Winn Carlson, A Fever in Salem focuses on the afflicted. What were the characteristics of a typical victim? Why did the symptoms occur when and where they did? What natural explanation could be given for symptoms that included hallucinations, convulsions, and psychosis, often resulting in death? Ms. Carlson offers an innovative, well-grounded explanation of witchcraft's link to organic illness. Systematically comparing the symptoms recorded in colonial diaries and court records to those of the encephalitis epidemic in the early twentieth century, she argues convincingly that the victims suffered from the same disease, and she offers persuasive evidence for organic explanations of other witchcraft victims throughout New England as well as in Europe. A Fever in Salem is a provocative reinterpretation of one of America's strangest moments, and a refreshing departure from widely accepted Freudian explanations of witchcraft persecution.
Industry Reviews
A fascinating, refreshing reassessment of one of the most bizarre episodes in American history.--The A-List

More in Social & Cultural History

The Town Like No Other : A Story of Broken Hill - Robert McLean

RRP $32.99

$28.75

13%
OFF
Abandoned Women : Scottish Convicts Exiled Beyond the Seas - Lucy Frost
Dark Emu : Aboriginal Australia and the Birth of Agriculture - Bruce Pascoe
Bondi Terror : The tragedy, the courage, the aftermath - Sharri Markson
Night : Penguin Modern Classics - Elie Wiesel

RRP $26.99

$15.75

42%
OFF
Women, Race & Class : Penguin Modern Classics - Angela Y. Davis

RRP $26.99

$22.99

15%
OFF
The Dawn of Everything : A New History of Humanity - David Graeber
Blitzed : Drugs in Nazi Germany - Norman Ohler

RRP $26.99

$22.99

15%
OFF
The Breath of the Gods : The History and Future of the Wind - Simon Winchester
The Origins of Totalitarianism : Penguin Modern Classics - Hannah Arendt
Goliath's Curse : The History and Future of Societal Collapse - Luke Kemp
Entitled : The Rise and Fall of the House of York - Andrew Lownie

RRP $37.99

$28.75

24%
OFF
A World Appears : A Journey Into Consciousness - Michael Pollan

RRP $39.99

$31.75

21%
OFF
A Woman's Work : Reclaiming the Radical History of Mothering - Elinor Cleghorn
JFK Jr. : An Intimate Oral Biography - RoseMarie Terenzio

RRP $36.99

$30.75

17%
OFF