{"product_id":"science-and-specters-at-salem","title":"Science and Specters at Salem","description":"\u003cp\u003eMost studies of the Salem witch trials focus on social history and the dynamics between accused and accusers. \u003ci\u003eScience and Specters at Salem\u003c\/i\u003e turns instead to the intellectual background of the judges to understand why they accepted controversial types of evidence.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe role of judges in a witch trial was central. Goldish argues that in Salem the judges' acceptance of questionable touch tests and spectral evidence was a result of their intellectual commitments. Several of the Salem judges were highly educated, and some of them were adherents of a particular philosophical school in England led by Henry More and Joseph Glanvill which Goldish calls \"the anti-Sadducees.\" He demonstrates how the ideas of these leading thinkers, friends of Robert Boyle and Sir Isaac Newton, could have led to the deaths of twenty accused witches in Salem.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis book will interest students and scholars of witch trials, American colonial history, Atlantic history, legal history and early modern Europe, as well as lay readers wanting a better understanding of Salem.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Taylor \u0026 Francis Ltd","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":49763743334744,"sku":"9781032317892","price":51.99,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0278\/1295\/4195\/files\/9781032317892.jpg?v=1768325429","url":"https:\/\/agendabookshop.com\/products\/science-and-specters-at-salem","provider":"Agenda Bookshop","version":"1.0","type":"link"}