By a professor of history at the U. of Michigan. An exploration of women and their status in colonial society and culture. Distributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc.

Karlsen has written an intriguing social history of witchcraft in Puritan New England (1620-1725). She unearths detailed evidence which demonstrates that prosecuted and accused witches generally were older, married women who had violated the religious and/or economic Puritan social hierarchy. Beyond their childbearing years and sometimes the recipients of inheritances, these women threatened the male-dominated social order and drew the ire of middle-aged men who accused them of witchcraft. A well-written, provocative addition to the recent scholarship on New England witchcraft.David Szatmary, Univ. of Washington Extension, Seattle From: Reed Elsevier Inc. Copyright Reed Business Information

The latest in an extensive list of scholarly works about witchcraft that have appeared during the last several years. Noting that in most previous investigations little importance is assigned to the gender of witches, Karlsen argues that witchcraft is actually the story of women and their place in society. Her well-organized book focuses upon life in 17th-century New England. Beginning with the accusations brought against Anne Hutchinson in the 1630s, the author carefully details each new outbreak of witchcraft, such as the disturbances in Hartford in the 1660s, and in Salem in the 1680s. Important individual cases are explained in the context of demographic, economic, religious, and sexual factors. Karlsen concludes that witches in Colonial America were simply dissatisfied with, or rebelling against, the gender and class hierarchies inherent in a religiously based male-oriented social order. This is an important book, well written and meticulously researched. It follows and extends John Demos's Entertaining Satan (CH, Apr '83) and Richard Weisman's Witchcraft, Magic, and Religion in 17th Century Massachusetts (CH, Jul '84). Karlsen's work is a better interpretation than Erica Jong's earlier feminist analysis, Witches (1981). All public and academic libraries.-R.M. Jellison, Miami University, Ohio From: Syndetics Solutions, Inc. Distributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc.