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.
During the events surrounding 1962 and the start of the Salem Witch Trials, pressures from the church were rising everywhere.
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
normal.
Although this trend was spreading around the country, and this spread worked with the argument. There are many different historical events that disprove it as well. One such event was the Holocaust. No Matter how many different historians look at that event, it will still be an outrageous tragedy with all the loss of life. Another example where having more evidence didn’t change the “most correct” view of history was the slave trade. Even if someone tried to defend it, there is no way the views of it could change even if we found out that they were agreeing to come over of their free will like indentured servants. The conditions alone make this another time when if more evidence was found the view on it would not change, thus disproving the authors claim.
I find this author’s argument convincing because he is not telling us what to think. Through the incredibly long article, he explained all claims that he made which allowed his points to be clearly understood. In addition, this is an extremely interesting topic because it has the possibility to have social implications. For example, the first affected girls may have been faking it to try and fit the social role of women during that time. Although most of the information that is given in the passage is true, the author still has a basis which is present in the passage. The biases are based on the information he is using and the article that he has selected as facts. Mixed in with the primary sources he has some secondary sources with opinions and facts that supported his claim. Overall this was a very well written source.