Factional Politics
The central thesis of the book is that factional politics created an atmosphere of antipathy, distrust, and disenchantment among the population of Salem that fostered an environment susceptible to accusations of witchcraft. Two families were at the center of this division. The Putnams were farmers, on the more conservative side of Puritan religion, and loyal to Salem Village while fearing (and feeling convicted and allured by) the Town. The Porters were also farmers but were diversifying into mercantile interests, somewhat less conservative Puritans, living nearer Salem Town, and mostly opposed to Parris. For the most part, those who were similar to the Putnams sided with them and those favorable to the Porters sided with their Salem Town perspective. This breakdown manifested itself in the support for the accusers—the Putnams—and the accused—the Porters.
Fear and Allure
The accusing girls tapped into the community's fear of the occult and of the Devil. They apparently became interested in fortune telling and spells and other trappings of the dark arts, which made them susceptible to witches, the Devil's handmaidens. While the community reacted with terror and anxiety, throwing the accused witches in jail, putting them on the stand, and executing almost two dozen, there is also a level of fascination with what they were so histrionically upset about. The historians suggest that what the people were unwittingly beguiled by they had to attack, hence the intensity of the finger-pointing—better someone else than themselves.
Structural Defects
Salem had a particular set of characteristics that contributed to the craziness of the situation in 1692. First, there was Salem Village and Salem Town—two different settlements, the former sprung from the latter and almost consistently resentful of its increasingly subordinate status. Second, for a long time Salem Village did not have the trappings of a "real" town, such as a town square or an established church; this also fostered division and resentment. Third, the area was undergoing big changes in terms of becoming a more modern, commerce-driven world, which created anxiety. Fourth, the larger colonial and even royal government structures were unstable, making civil involvement more difficult to procure. Overall, there were many factors that amalgamated to bring about, exacerbate, and prolong the crisis in Salem.
Gender
The accusers and the accused were all mostly girls or women who, in a strictly patriarchal society, were second-class citizens. Many of them were also less affluent or otherwise an outsider of some sort. Historians posit that the young girls who did the accusing were relishing this moment of power, as such a thing was not often granted to them, and that their targets were women who were easy to identify as trouble to the social fabric—a West Indian woman, a sharp-tongued homeless woman, a woman who didn't follow inheritance rules, etc. Yet it was still men who called the shots in Salem and Massachusetts—men who preached at the pulpit, men who gave damning testimonies, men who sat on the judge's bench, men who had the actual power to bring the Trials to a close.
Social History
This is a work of social history, in which the historians comb through courtroom transcripts, Books of Record, wills and estate papers, petitions, tax rolls, and more in order to make a claim about how people lived and why they behaved as they did. The University of Chicago defines this kind of history: "Social historians, committed to understanding the lives of ordinary people, have faced particular challenges locating sources... social historians have responded creatively, turning to quantitative data, material and visual culture, the built environment, and oral histories to supplement more traditional archival and printed sources."
Change
One of the main theses of the text is that the drama and tragedy of the witchcraft trials was exacerbated by the fact that there were major social and economic changes afoot—the pre-capitalist society the Puritans founded in the 1630s was giving way to a mercantile, commerce-driven economy in which individualism seemed to matter more than the community as a whole. Many of the the accusers came from families who were struggling to adjust to this new situation, while many of the accused were those who represented these changes, or the problems that might come with those changes.
Social Hierarchy
Social hierarchy matters a great deal to the Puritans. They believe that a person must be content with their social status, and one who grasps after something that is not his lot in life is seen to be suspicious. Hierarchy pertains to race, class, gender, and church membership status, and even during the witchcraft trials when so much was in flux, it held sway over the Villagers. Boyer and Nissenbaum note that the accusers generally avoided those of very high status, and that those accused with status managed to escape (in several cases, literally fleeing the region).