Witchcraft at Salem by Chadwick Hansen Much has been written about the Salem witchcraft trials of 1692, and much has been misunderstood. "The more I studied the documents of what actually took place in the community, "writes Chadwich Hansen, "the more I found myself in opposition to the traditional interpretations. It seemes to me that a serious consideration was in order." He argues, for instance, that witchcraft was actually practiced in seventeeth-century New England, as it was in Europe at the same time. Morever, the behaviro of the afflicted persons was not fraudulent, as some have claimed, but pathological: these people were hysterics in the clinical rather than the popular sense of the term. Further still, the clergy did not inspire or take advantage of the witch hunts as has been charged; on the contrary, they were among the chief opponents of the "mass hysteria". Library Journal called this book, "...The most important scholarly contribution to the literature of witchcraft to appear in many years." PA, ISBN: 0807611379 $12.95 (Can: $19.50)