Full name: The Devil in the Shape of a Woman: Witchcraft in Colonial New England

Author: Carol F. Karlsen Year: 1987 Rank: Rating: Original Rating: Pop Rating: Genres/categories: History, Non Fiction, Paranormal, Religion Purchase/reserch links: LibraryThing Goodreads Amazon ISBNs: 9780393317596 0393317595

Confessing to "familiarity with the devils," Mary Johnson, a servant, was executed by Connecticut officials in 1648. A wealthy Boston widow, Ann Hibbens was hanged in 1656 for casting spells on her neighbors. The case of Ann Cole, who was "taken with very strange Fits," fueled an outbreak of witchcraft accusations in Hartford a generation before the notorious events at Salem. More than three hundred years later, the question "Why?" still haunts us. Why were these and other women likely witches--vulnerable to accusations of witchcraft and possession? Carol F. Karlsen reveals the social construction of witchcraft in seventeenth-century New England and illuminates the larger contours of gender relations in that society. Similar books: Entertaining Satan by John Demos In the Devil's Snare by Mary Beth Norton The Devil in Massachusetts by Marion L. Starkey The Night Battles by Carlo Ginzburg Witch Hunt by Nigel Cawthorne The Salem Witch Trials Reader by Frances Hill Witches and Neighbors by Robin Briggs Good Wives by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich A New World by Arthur J. Quinn Ecstasies: Deciphering the Witches' Sabbath by Carlo Ginzburg Legends, Lies, and Cherished Myths of American History by Richard Shenkman The Witch-Hunt in Early Modern Europe by Brian P. Levack Witchfinders by Malcolm Gaskill The Plantation Mistress by Catherine Clinton That's Not in My American History Book by Thomas Ayres No god but God by Reza Aslan 1453 by Roger Crowley Caesar and Christ by Will Durant Servants of Allah by Sylviane A. Diouf The Wonder That Was India by A. L. Basham