Historians Paul Boyer and Stephen Nissenbaum’s Salem Possessed was published in 1974 to great acclaim; it is considered a landmark work of social history and a core part of the extensive body of work on the Salem Witch Trials. They root the hysteria in internal divisions among Salem Village and Salem Town, as well as the underlying tensions due to the progression of the society from agrarian to urban and commercial.
One of the notable aspects of the work is its reliance on sources that historians of Salem had not often consulted prior to Salem Possessed. Robert Middlekauff explains, “The sources used are more varied than those employed by any student of Salem. Besides the sermons still...
