A Fever in Salem: A New Interpretation of the New England Witch Trials
by Laurie Winn Carlson
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Book Summary Information
Author: Laurie Winn CarlsonEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 2000-08-25
ISBN: 1566633095
Number of pages: 215
Publisher: Ivan R. Dee, Publisher
Book Reviews of A Fever in Salem: A New Interpretation of the New England Witch Trials
Book Review: Fanciful
Summary: 1 Stars
As more scholarly reviewers have already pointed out, the author has done little more than propose a novel theory and then scour the historical record to prop up her suppositions. An example that sticks in my head is when Winn theorizes that mosquitoes may have been the disease barriers. Her reasoning runs: the Salem girls were mostly affected, right? And girls work in the garden, where there are mosquitoes, and girls do chores in the dawn and dusk, when mosquitoes are active. Uhhh...did Puritan men ever get out of the kitchen in Winn's world? Then a page later, she announces that it could have been ticks. After all, men went out into the woods and cut tick-infested lumber for firewood (conveniently not getting bitten). The lumber was then placed in homes where the girls lived, and, well, you do the math. It just doesn't add up to anything more than a fanciful "say, what if?....nah."
Summary of A Fever in Salem: A New Interpretation of the New England Witch Trials
This new interpretation of the New England Witch Trials offers an innovative, well-grounded explanation of witchcraft's link to organic illness. While most historians have concentrated on the accused, Laurie Winn Carlson focuses on the afflicted. 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. A unique blend of historical epidemiology and sociology. --Katrina L. Kelner, Science. Meticulously researched...the author marshalls her arguments with clarity and persuasive force. --New YorkerThe 1692 Salem witch trials have made an indelible impression on our national conscience. Investigations into this strange moment in colonial history, when 20 accused witches were executed and over a hundred imprisoned because of their "supernatural" infliction of townsfolk and animals, traditionally focus on the accused. In A Fever in Salem: A New Interpretation of the New England Witch Trials, Laurie Winn Carlson focuses instead on the afflicted, examining potential natural explanations for their typical symptoms, which included hallucinations, convulsions, psychosis, and frequently death. She provocatively concludes that the witch hunts of New England were a "response to unexplained physical and neurological behaviors resulting from an epidemic of encephalitis."
Winn Carlson, an independent scholar based in Washington state, has thoroughly familiarized herself with conventional explanations for the event, which range from the Freudian female neurosis to the sociological community-based socioeconomic problems. In eight methodologically composed chapters, she convincingly illustrates how these fail to account for many relevant facts. Instead, by contrasting the symptoms of 17th-century Massachusetts victims with those in other colonies, in Europe, and in more modern times, Winn Carlson supports her claim for an organic cause. A statistical appendix, maps, and chronology further bolster her theory. Academically rigorous without sounding pedantic, A Fever in Salem offers a refreshing interpretation to both the scholar and the general reader of an event that continues to fascinate. --Bertina Loeffler Sedlack
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