Switching Sides: How a Generation of Historians Lost Sympathy for the Victims of the Salem Witch Hunt

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When people, non-historians, think of historical writings, they generally think everything is set in stone and that it does not change. In reality, historical writings, theses, and research change, but they change really slowly, almost too slow to notice in real time. But with books like this one by Tony Fels, we get to see how historians have viewed one particular topic and how their understanding has changed over the decades, especially after the rise of social histories in the 1960s. Tony Fels looks at the Salem Witch Trials in 1692 and specifically looks at authors who wrote important books after World War II on the topic. He generally focuses on post-1960 books, and in them he explores how the authors have changed the narrative of how we view that event and does a critical analysis of each book under question. This is a book that is important in college, especially for young historians, because it helps us become better ones and shows us that ways of looking at things do change. Even people who are not historians will find this interesting, as it shows that history is a living, breathing, topic.


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Author Tony Fels
Star Count /5
Format Trade
Page Count 280 pages
Publisher Johns Hopkins University Press
Publish Date 2017-Nov-28
ISBN 9781421424378
Bookshop.org Buy this Book
Issue April 2018
Category History
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