Review: Francis, Judge Sewell's Apology

Judge Sewall's Apology: The Salem Witch Trials and the Forming of an American Conscience by Richard Francis

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


This is a biography of Samuel Sewell, who was one of the judges in the Salem witchcraft trials. It is well-written and well-researched. I would have liked it better if it had been more about the witchcraft trials and less about Samuel Sewell, and I would have liked it better if Francis had not been so concerned to show how remarkable Sewell was, how humane he was and how idealistic, etc. etc. Francis also argues that Sewell marks the transition from allegory to psychology as a way of understanding human lives, but the problem there is that to do so, he has to pretty much ignore the entire Renaissance. Sewell IS that person for the Puritans of New England, and as such is important to the development of American thought, but in his eagerness to show how special Sewell is, Francis tends to forget that the Puritans were 100 to 200 years behind the curve here.

This is a great depiction of life in Puritan Boston around the turn of the seventeenth century, and definitely if you're interested in early American history it is well worth your time. But the subtitle: "The Salem Witch Trials and the Formation of an American Conscience": is a little bit misleading, since the book isn't interested in Salem and doesn't provide any new insights. (I was very disappointed in Francis for heading straight down the FRAUD interpretation without really much nuance.) Honestly, I found much of the day to day minutiae of Sewell's life boring rather than charming and actually FINISHED the book mostly out of pig-headedness. But a different reader will have a different experience. YMMV.



View all my reviews

comments