Massachusetts Books

Many missionary memoirs are written to be inspirational. Many missionaries biographies lack the prose needed to capture the reader. This book is in neither category.

Ruth Hemenway wanted to dedicate her life to service, and in particular to service to the Chinese. She did so through the church only because it was a means to her end. She was often at odds with other missionaries because she had no desire to convert the Chinese to Christianity. She resented their bigotry in considering the Chinese inferior.

Hemenway's descriptive prose paints an intriguing picture of the rural Yangtze Valley and Chungking, their countrysides, their peoples, and the warring factions fighting to control these areas. Details of her practice provide insights into state of medicine at the time. The book is illustrated by Hemenway's own sketches and pictures.

If you are interested in intercultural studies, revolutionary China or missionary medicine, it is worth tracking down a copy of this book.

I stumbled across this book while in the library looking for something else and am overjoyed to have found it. Boston Harbor is a place full of legends and magic. Snow recounts the amazing stories he knows in a way that invites further exploration.

I have a suspicion that Sebastian Junger had this book open next to him when he was writing "The Perfect Storm." But there is one critical difference: Craig Moodie, in this work of fiction, paints his characters far more truly and originally than Mr. Junger did in his work of non-fiction. Anyone who has read Junger's book should read this one to see what life at the mercy of the sea is really like.

This is a reprint of Upham's two-volume book originally published in 1867. It is the definitive work on the witch hunt of 1692 and I highly recommend it for anyone interested in the Salem trials.

"This book offers a detailed and highly readable account of the Salem witchcraft affair of 1692. Its publication coincides with the tercentenary observance of the events that form one of the grimmest chapters in colonial American history. . . Part One, 'Salem Witchcraft History,' provides background information on the Puritan settlement of New England and documents the circumstances which led to the witch hunt of 1692. It identifies the conspirators who accused innocent people by working in collusion with the Puritan old guard authority. It then gives an account of the Andover phase of the witch hunt, with emphasis on the almost forgotten story of the fifty townspeople who were imprisoned for witchcraft in 1692. . . Part Two, 'The House of the Seven Gables,' briefly examines [Nathaniel] Hawthorne's treatment of the witchcraft events in which is ancestor [John Hathorne] had played such a central role. . . Part Three, 'Salem Witchcraft Genealogy,' gives biographies of the accusers and the accused during the latter phase of the Salem witchcraft affair. . . "

This is the most important and accessable resourse for anyone intersested in the Salem Witch Trials. It seems a real shame that a person can buy Journey albumn released ten years ago but books go out of print so quickly, especially books as vital as this one. Let's hope the publish on demand people flourish!

I read "The Crucible" in my senior year of High School, and I had some ghosts from it; I would say that this was my first real taste of the Puritan faith reading that story, and now that I had a chance to look further into the story I found it to be rather disturbing. Not just because it deals with Witchcraft, but I stopped short of calling the Puritan faith a cult. To me cults are bad news where you get brainwashed, and conditioned to think a certain way. Well our founding fathers would come over in the 17th century, and to have religious freedom from the Church of England, and it's rituals. However, the Puritans involved in this fracas wound up being worse than pagans, and the people from the Church Of England. The Puritans believed in the Bible as the infalliable word of God. That is a healthy way of looking at it, but they picked the legal ends of the Bible, and ignored the love, and grace end of the Bible. The Puritan leaders in Increase and Cotton Mather, and Samuel Parris would rule colonial Massachussettes with fists of iron, and drew up all kinds of codes of moral behavior where citizens were forced to be prim and proper 24/7 with no signs of doing the simple things like a husband and wife kissing in public. The girls would be housebound, and virtual slaves to the men, and still having to carry the weight of the Puritan laws around thier necks like an albatross. Out of this came one of the biggest genocides in American History. It started small as Samuel Parris's daughter, and neice would begin to show signs of illness both mental and physical, and causing them to roll on the ground, and moaning. Then came the arrests as the cause was limited to being a case of witchcraft. The two girls obviously had spells put on them by a witch, or so the public thought...after all there was no physical ailment there to cause the woes, so it has to be witchcraft. I honestly believe that witchcraft played a part, but the bottom line I feel that it turned into a circus as Cotton Mather and Samuel Parris began to run the hunt. Increase Mather would supply the man to run Massachusettes according to England. However, Mather, Parris, and the other major Puritan leaders lead the investigations. Then when one of the accused a minister named George Burroughs recited the Lord's Prayer to perfection Cotton Mather would change the subject, and say that Burroughs was a agent of Satan because while he was considered a minister he was never ordained. I didn't know in order to be a Christian you had to be ordained as a minister. Burroughs was just one of 19 who would be subject to persecution, and most eventually death. Lives were changed, and people lost desire to follow God, and many were left homeless and penniless. I feel witchcraft was responsible, but I feel that legalistic religious leaders were just as bad if not worse. I also can't help, but wonder if maybe the girls were doing this to get some attention as well. After all they were banished to a life of slavery. Thier parents who followed the Puritan faith would not show them the physical love mostly, and then tell them that if they don't make tiddlywinks God would banish them into hell anyway, and also these were girls who really didn't have any rights at all. The town of Salem has tried to diffuse the stench that this created by making it into a tourist area, and a place of rememberance. I just feel that no matter how much money, and how many apologies we make to the people who suffered through the past will ever find healing. Towards the end of the book I felt that charges should've been brought up against the Mathers, and Samuel Parris for the slaughter of these people. However, as I said I stopped short of calling the Puritans a cult.

This is a fantastic book for the history of witch craft enthusiast. I loved it and learned a lot that I didn't already know.

Bill Quinn captures the aura and drama of colonial America in this highly illustrated volume about a forgotten American industry.

To all aspiring poets, professional poets, wannabe poets, and loves of poetry - if you read no other book about poetry - READ THIS BOOK. Robert Francis has a wit and mind like no other. Less a technical manual and more a philosophy book, it truly is, in its teachings, poetry itself.