A review by leasummer
The Witches: Salem, 1692 by Stacy Schiff

3.0

This is a heavy book - both literally and figuratively. This is a VERY detailed history of the late 1600s in New England, centered around the Salem witch trials. I got bogged down by the detailed background information - there would be multiple pages about the background/history of a character in the middle of the text regarding the hearings and then it would continue on with the hearings. There is a lot of good historical information about the government, what it meant to be a Puritan and what life was like during the late 1600s. However, this made it tough to just read through. There is little information about the accused and the accusers, due to the lack of historical data on them; it's basically a history on the guys who proceeded over the trials. A majority of the time it read like a textbook - for me, this is a great resource book but not so much a sit down and read history.

I almost abandoned the book, I had to force myself to keep reading - I treated it like a homework assignment. The only thing that kept me going was the interest in the subject, particularly Susannah Martin, who I am a descendant of.