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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A history of mass-hysteria - still possible today, 17 Aug 1999
By A Customer
I first read, "The Devil in Massachusetts" in the late1960s as part of a colonial history course. Having also an interest in psychology at that time, I was impressed with the story of the mass-hysteria and the book made a lasting impression on me.I re-read the book following a visit to Salem, Massachusetts this summer. I had noticed the same mass-hysteria involving false charges of child-sexual abuse along with the recovered memory movement during the 1980s an 1990s. Although Starkey necessarily presents her tale against a background of religion and religious delusions, the contempory mass-hysteria has no apparent connection to religion but the reactions of the public (society) shows a distrubing duplication of the process of hysterical contagion. Once a "cause", whether it be sexual abuse, gun control or other "hot-button" issue, is pushed into the limelight and kept there by fanatics of whatever stripe, abetted and given publicity by the media, the society (public) has almost a religious need to curtail critical thinking, accept accusation as proven fact, believe stories of impossible events and destroy their fellow citizens without compunction. And that is the horror that is demonstrated by Starkey's work; and the naivete of the old, standby reassurances, "It couldn't happen in this day and age", "It could never happen here".
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by Mary Beth Norton
by Arthur Miller
