America Bewitched
The Story of Witchcraft After Salem
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- $6.99
Publisher Description
America Bewitched is the first major history of witchcraft in America - from the Salem witch trials of 1692 to the present day.
The infamous Salem trials are etched into the consciousness of modern America, the human toll a reminder of the dangers of intolerance and persecution. The refrain 'Remember Salem!' was invoked frequently over the ensuing centuries. As time passed, the trials became a milepost measuring the distance America had progressed from its colonial past, its victims now the righteous and their persecutors the shamed. Yet the story of witchcraft did not end as the American Enlightenment dawned - a new, long, and chilling chapter was about to begin.
Witchcraft after Salem was not just a story of fire-side tales, legends, and superstitions: it continued to be a matter of life and death, souring the American dream for many. We know of more people killed as witches between 1692 and the 1950s than were executed before it. Witches were part of the story of the decimation of the Native Americans, the experience of slavery and emancipation, and the immigrant experience; they were embedded in the religious and social history of the country. Yet the history of American witchcraft between the eighteenth and the twentieth century also tells a less traumatic story, one that shows how different cultures interacted and shaped each other's languages and beliefs.
This is therefore much more than the tale of one persecuted community: it opens a fascinating window on the fears, prejudices, hopes, and dreams of the American people as their country rose from colony to superpower.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Historian Davies (Magic: A Very Short Introduction) makes a strong case for the inefficacy of corporeal punishment in this tedious cultural history despite the judges' intentions, the 1692 executions in Salem, Mass., of 19 individuals accused of witchcraft did little to inhibit its development and evolution. Drawing upon stories from colonial times to today, Davies explores a number of topics related to wizardry such as how communities identified, dealt with, and legislated the supposed practice of sorcery and he offers up an intriguing social taxonomy of witches: "outsider witches," he explains, were pegged as such because of "where they lived, how they lived, and what they looked like"; "long-term personal feuds and unresolved tensions" led to scurrilous accusations of witchery and what Davies terms "conflict witches"; and the "accidental" type were "simply in the wrong place at the wrong time... or did or said something completely innocently but which subsequent misfortune rendered suspicious with hindsight." Over the years, the stigma surrounding witchcraft has dissipated: in the 19th century, many people placed horseshoes above the threshold of their houses to ward off evil, but today, proponents of Wicca are regarded as "benign and sympathetic" pagans. It has some compelling moments, but Davies's wearying survey adds little to the study of occultism in America. 20 illus.
