In this forceful historical defense, Charles W. Upham reopens the Salem witchcraft controversy to answer critics who accused him of misrepresenting Cotton Mather's role. Framing the dispute as more than a personal quarrel, he presents it as a matter of historical justice, scholarly fairness, and the need to preserve the record of colonial New England truthfully. His argument traces how Increase and Cotton Mather, through sermons, publications, and a relentless appetite for "remarkables," helped cultivate a climate of fear in which apparitions, possessions, witches, and invisible evil seemed everywhere. Drawing on contemporary voices, he shows how their influence shaped public credulity and helped prepare the ground for the Goodwin children case and the Salem outbreak of 1692. The book examines Mather's conduct, the special court, spectral evidence, the trials and executions, and the competing accounts of Robert Calef and later critics, while also defending the historian's right to selective, purposeful narration. Serious, argumentative, and richly documented, it offers a vivid study of mass delusion, clerical power, and colonial justice. This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design.
