Salem, a village struggling to gain a foothold on the boundary of what was still a very wild and forbidding continent, will forever be tainted with the bloody brush of irony, for it was founded by Puritans, who for the most part came to the shores of North American to pursue their faith without persecution. Where a community burdened with guilt allowed the fog of history to obscure a devastating transgression, Schiff pulls back the veil, revealing in chronological detail the layers of superstition and righteous zealotry that ended the lives of 20 individuals and destroyed the livelihoods of many more. In Pulitzer Prize-winning author, Stacy Schiff’s new book, “The Witches: Salem, 1692,” the murky depths of that horrifying year are probed deeply and with exceptional care, building a rich tapestry of facts meticulously extracted from an event in history that has been elevated to nearly mythological status. "The Witches: Salem, 1692," by Stacy Schiff.Īrthur Miller’s “The Crucible” is required reading in nearly every high school classroom, placing the village of Salem, Massachusetts, well within the sphere of pop-culture awareness.
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