In an era of religious provocations, crowdsourcing, and invisible enemies, this enthralling story makes more sense than ever. Stacy Schiff covers the hysteria of the Salem witch trial era in 'The Witches.' One such trial was 1692 trial of George Jacobs, depicted here. Schiff brings early American anxieties to the fore to align them brilliantly with our own.

She illuminates the demands of a rigorous faith, the vulnerability of settlements adrift from the mother country, perched - at a politically tumultuous time - on the edge of what a visitor termed a 'remote, rocky, barren, bushy, wild-woody wilderness.' With devastating clarity, the textures and tensions of a colonial life emerge hidden patterns subtly, startlingly detach themselves from the darkness. Drawing masterfully on the archives, Stacy Schiff introduces us to the strains on a Puritan adolescent's life and to the authorities whose delicate agendas were at risk. The Witches proves she has something else: the instincts of a thriller writer. All of Schiff's books demonstrate her rigor as a historian and her dexterity as a stylist. Pulitzer Prize winner Stacy Schiff, author of the 1 bestseller Cleopatra, provides an electrifying, fresh view of the Salem witch trials. The Salem witch trials offer Stacy Schiff an out-sized drama that seized Americans' imaginations more than 300 years ago. Along with suffrage and Prohibition, the Salem witch trials represent one of the few moments when women played the central role in American history. From intelligent rule to hysteria, mayhem, and murder. 'An electrifying, fresh view of the Salem witch trials. Dust jacket protected in a mylar book cover. Boldly signed by the author on the title page, no dedication. xiv, 498 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates, illustrations (chiefly colour) 25 cm.

The witches book stacy schiff