Historian Peter Charles Hoffer reexamines a notorious episode in American history and presents many of its legal details in true perspective for the first time. Hoffer also shows how rights we take for granted today did not exist in colonial times, and he demonstrates how these cases relate to current instances of children accusing adults of abuse. Distributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc.

Hoffer's first history of the Salem witchcraft aberration, The Devil's Disciples (CH, Nov'96), analyzed the history and lives of the participants in the affair. This book covers much of the same material, but with an emphasis on its legal aspects. Hoffer discusses the legal nature of the charges of witchcraft, the evidential and procedural characteristics of the trials of the accused, and the roles and attitudes of the ministers and magistrates who controlled the proceedings. As with The Devil's Disciples, Hoffer offers little that is new in terms of interpretation, but he presents it well and in a manner easily grasped by the general reader. In many ways the book is a good modern introduction to the topic, excellent preparation for more sophisticated works such as John Putnam Demos's Entertaining Satan (CH, Apr'83); Elizabeth Reis's Damned Women (CH, Dec'97); Carol F. Karlsen's The Devil in the Shape of a Woman (CH, Jun'88); David Konig's Law and Society in Puritan Massachusetts (CH, Mar'80); and Richard Weisman's Witchcraft, Magic, and Religion in 17th-Century Massachusetts (CH, Jul'84). General readers through graduate students. H. R. King; Eastern Michigan University From: Syndetics Solutions, Inc. Distributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc.

Distributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc.