Summary Of The Visible And Invisible Worlds Of Salem

In The Visible and Invisible Worlds of Salem, the author made the point that views of history change when others evaluate the evidence. He/She argued that new evidence can change the view of a historical event. An example of this is shown when he talks about the previous studies done by another historian. He spends most of the time talking about other historians views and tries to connect all of them. This historian uses many different sources to find the social implications of the witch trials. He specifically utilizes the housing records to try and see if the there was a different motive for blaming people for being witches. He was able to find that there was a deeper reason so many people were being accused. It was the classic east versus west where one had more land that others wanted. They were able to take some of the lands they wanted that way. Another reason people were accused of that article was that they were a woman that held some power whether that be land from a husband or father they were also targeted because they threatened the social norms for a woman.
In Europe, the witch hunts were spreading and were gaining popularity with the churches because it was an easy way to eliminate the woman who had the potential to threaten the church. Once the idea spread to America is spread started to slow. Many of the communities did not accept such devilish accusations, in fact, the only one that did accept it took it to an extreme. The village that did accept it was Salem. This ideology of this time period supported the claim of the author because it showed how new pieces of evidence and historical background can make an outrageous occurrence almost