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The Haunting Of America: From The Salem Witch Trials To Harry Houdini (2009)

by Joel Martin(Favorite Author)

2.99 of 5 Votes: 2

ISBN

0765313812 (ISBN13: 9780765313812)

languge

English

genre

History & Biography

publisher

Forge Books

review 1: Repetitive and absurdly credulous. The section dealing with the Salem witch trials is interesting and lucid, but it's followed by utterly unconvincing anecdotes about Washington's alleged mystical experiences (plainly fabricated during the Civil War era) and Lincoln's involvement with spiritualism (based on a medium's self-serving memoirs) which make it painfully clear that the authors will not be engaging in a lot of hard critical thinking.The rest of the book charts a course through familiar but perennially interesting material (Home, Blavatsky, William James, Conan Doyle, Houdini), all of which is addressed more competently in other books.
review 2: This book would have been a lot more enjoyable if the authors had taken either a skeptical point of view, a b... moreelievers' point of view, or tried to write their entire book from a neutral perspective, but unfortunately this book is all over the place.It's the first book I've read that tries to pass a scholarly opinion that the Salem witch hysteria was caused by acutal witchcraft. Which is fine, or even interesting, except that the chapters on seances and mediumship came off as overly skeptical. The rest of the book was rather dry and wholly unremarkable. It was all right, and I got through it (eventually), but I do feel like there is a lot of room for improvement. less

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