Witchcraft at Salem

by Chadwick Hansen

First released in 1969, Witchcraft at Salem was one of the first of a new wave of scholarly books on the subject of the Salem Witch Trials. Chadwick Hansen, then a professor at the University of Illinois, offered a reappraisal of the prevailing assumption that those executed were victims of a mass hysteria, arguing that witchcraft was widely practiced in 1690s Salem, and that—according to the culture of the time—”there was every reason to regard [this alleged witchcraft] as a criminal offense.”

Richard Trask, historian and town archivist for Danvers (the Massachusetts town formerly known as Salem Village), told Five Books that Chadwick’s book “was and is filled with original insights. I believe it a pioneering work.”