The Salem Witch Trials Revisited (REBROADCAST)

A new book suggests that colonial America's most infamous episode was the result of a complicated web of political and social factors extending far beyond the borders of the town of Salem. Rather than the hysterical whims of a group of young girls, our guest says the episode was part of a larger political crisis involving the Indian Wars, Puritanism, and Colonialism. Laura's guest is Mary Beth Norton, a Mary Donlon Alger professor of American History at Cornell University.