This comes from a book with a provocative title (The Devil on Trial). I believe the subheading also throws in words like anarchists and atheists for more attention seeking. But of course the section we are looking at is Salem. There are several ways to look at the topic: scholarly examination of the social and economic climate that gave rise to hysteria, or with the sensational these Puritans hung a dog because two girls said it was bewitching things!
This is what I have in mind for the assignment: Why is this still a thing? It’s literally the one thing that everybody knows…and knows well. For some reason — got several theories — this has become an American Parable (copyright pending on that term).
Here are the questions I want you to answer for me.
- How did this begin?
- Who were some of its victims? Why do you think they were targets?
- What did you find most troubling?
- How do explain something like this taking hold of a community? Normally good people killed other good people on the word of two girls.
Mr. Rickman's blog 