Blazes new trails into Salem’s well-explored history.
The author of Founding Mothers and Fathers (1996) evaluates a less edifying episode in early American history—the infamous 1692 witchcraft scare—and finds connections between the terrors of American’s Second Indian War and the colonial authorities’ endorsement of the trials.
Instead of writing another history of the oft-chronicled crisis, Norton (American History/Cornell Univ.) looks at the notoriously flawed and unfair trails from a 17th-century perspective. She quickly uncovers a number of historical threads not previously explored by scholars. Most prominently, Norton argues that massacres of colonists by the fearsome Wabanakis tribe during the Second Indian War and the colonial government’s failure to effectively counter such killings were the main precipitators of the witchcraft trials. According to the author, the contemporary Puritan worldview insisted that the military failures of such notable officials as chief judge William Stroughton and Sir William Phips indicated God’s displeasure with the New England colonies. Furthermore, Norton reveals, many of the Salem accusers had suffered personal losses at the hands of brutal Wabanakis. In her analysis of spiraling war fears and spiritual hysteria, the author contends that the state’s leaders were all too willing to believe allegations of witchcraft, which they convinced themselves was evidence of Satan’s rather than their own incompetence. Norton, a feminist scholar, blames the Massachusetts governor, councils, and judges for the executions of innocent Salem “witches.” Her fascinating new take on the crisis has particular relevance in our own era, when rumors of war and resurgent religious fervor again create a volatile cultural mix.
Blazes new trails into Salem’s well-explored history.Pub Date: Oct. 8, 2002
ISBN: 0-375-40709-X
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2002
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A distanced portrait of an eccentric family that fails to engage.
In his debut memoir, former GQ managing editor Smith pays underwhelming homage to his father.
As interior decorator to Miami’s rich and famous, Lew Smith was celebrated for fashion-forward designs that ranged from “tropical-fantasy” to “Zen-inspired.” Wife Esther threw lavish dinner parties with swinging gay men, and the couple frequently graced the local newspapers’ society pages. The author’s early childhood in the 1950s included getaways to Havana, where his parents danced the night away while six-year-old Philip nursed rum cocktails at the bar. Gradually, Lew eschewed the ritzy nightlife in favor of a macrobiotic diet, esoteric forms of yoga and a relentless commitment to the study and practice of spirituality. To his family’s disbelief, he became a local psychic, using his “gift from God” and a trusty pendulum to heal Miami’s deaf, blind, crippled and cancer-ridden, never charging them a dime. The repetitious healing scenes fall a little too neatly into place and don’t explain much about Lew. Meanwhile, teenaged Philip began dabbling with girls, boys, electroshock therapy (to cure him of his attraction to the boys) and even Scientology, but his stabs at adolescent rebellion were continually thwarted by his father’s psychic abilities. Indeed, Smith seems more interested in Lew’s development than his own, giving only passing mention to such potentially rich subjects as his confusion about his sexual identity and his struggle to cope with his parents’ divorce. The author provides colorful descriptions of Miami, beginning in the ’50s, when it was “a big ol’ cracker swamp due east of the Everglades [where] Dixiecrats, blacks, and coral snakes summed up the population, in that order.” Regrettably, the city is a more fully realized character than any of the Smiths. By the time the author injects more of himself into the text, as he unravels the mystery of his father’s untimely death, it’s too little, too late.
A distanced portrait of an eccentric family that fails to engage.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2008
ISBN: 978-1-4165-4294-0
Page Count: 334
Publisher: Atria
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2008
A cogent argument offering many striking examples of the power and potential of the unconscious.
Neuroscientist Powell claims that psychic abilities can be validated by modern physics.
Human history is rich with mythology about extrasensory perception, most famously employed by the seers at the ancient oracle of Delphi, but its relationship to the brain remains unexplained. Is consciousness a surrounding force that we are capable of tapping into, or is it a result of the billions of synapse connections occurring in our brains? Can mere coincidence explain the vast number of Jung’s “synchronicities,” or is consciousness a virtual medium for universal interconnectivity? Powell’s theory of consciousness seeks to resolve some of these mysteries. Einstein and Hawking, she reminds us, wrote about time being malleable, existing totally and simultaneously. This would explain prescient visions and telepathic instinct shared by loved ones during crises even when they’re located far from each other. In easy-to-understand language, the author describes carefully controlled studies involving telekinesis, clairvoyance and precognition, presenting the results as evidence of the brain’s latent psychic tendency. She also theorizes that dreams, near-death experiences and out-of-body sensations may be manifestations of our inherent ability to relax the constructs of three-dimensional perception. Perhaps even memory is an instance of our minds accessing outside psychic information from “all of space and time.” Powell dubs this intertwined, inextricable relationship between the individual’s internal world and the external world “the Mobius mind,” named for its cyclical and symbiotic nature. This concept persists in Eastern religions, particularly Buddhism; meditation is one technique to reach a state of collective enlightenment. Particle physics, too, relies on underlying theories of resonance and symmetry, notes the author. She makes a persuasive argument that with the spectacular advances in particle physics will come a scientific revolution of thought, and with it a deeper understanding of the brain. Phenomenal brain abnormalities, such as the unexplained expertise of the savant, demonstrate incredible feats of brainpower that can’t be described or explained.
A cogent argument offering many striking examples of the power and potential of the unconscious.Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-8027-1606-4
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Walker
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2008
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