Overview

As the descendent of Martha Carrier, an accused woman executed at Salem, Alice Markham-Cantor presents a riveting story that spans centuries and brings the historical significance of the witch trials into modern times. Extensively researched and told through alternating fiction and non-fiction chapters, this book illuminates a shocking truth: contrary to popular opinion, the witch hunts never ended. Alice shares research that suggests tens of thousands of witch hunt related deaths have happened all over the world in the last thirty years. The Once & Future Witch Hunt also features tantalizing glimpses into Alice's ancestors' lives and reimagines the trials through fact-based fiction. At the intersection of witchcraft, feminism, anthropology, and history, this book gives us as authentic a retelling as may ever be possible while trying to answer that single, irrepressible question: how could this have happened?

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9780738776279

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Reviews

"""This is the most vivid and accessible introduction to the world's most notorious witch trials that a newcomer is likely to find, and also a very timely warning for the present."" --Ronald Hutton, author of The Witch: A History of Fear, from Ancient Times to the Present ?""In this fascinating and powerful look at the story of one family caught up in the Salem witch trials, Alice Markham-Cantor performs a kind of literary magic, blending fact and fiction into a form perfectly suited to the troubling subject matter and the limits of the historical record. The exact truth of what happened to her ancestor Martha Carrier will never be known, but thanks to this indelible book, readers can imagine Martha's life and, alas, her death."" --Ann Packer, author of The Children's Crusade ""Through lively characters and fast-paced storytelling, Markham-Cantor transports us directly into the world of the Salem witch trials. The Once & Future Witch Hunt clearly shows that there is nothing exceptional about the conditions in which witch hunts arise. Rather, we see how the urge to blame, scapegoat, and other is all too typically human."" --Miranda Forsyth, director of the International Network Against Accusations of Witchcraft and Associated Harmful Practices ""Alice Markham-Cantor has done a remarkable thing here. From the sparest bones of ancestor's story, she has fashioned a thoroughly engaging work of scholarship that is equal parts historical fiction, personal narrative, feminist theory, and a good old-fashioned detective yarn. In The Once & Future Witch Hunt, Markham-Cantor rescues Martha Carrier from one of the darkest corners of our nation's past. Her voice, and Markham-Cantor's too, will linger in your memory long after you've turned the final page."" --Alexandra Styron, author of Reading My Father"

"""This is the most vivid and accessible introduction to the world's most notorious witch trials that a newcomer is likely to find, and also a very timely warning for the present."" --Ronald Hutton, author of The Witch: A History of Fear, from Ancient Times to the Present ""In this fascinating and powerful look at the story of one family caught up in the Salem witch trials, Alice Markham-Cantor performs a kind of literary magic, blending fact and fiction into a form perfectly suited to the troubling subject matter and the limits of the historical record. The exact truth of what happened to her ancestor Martha Carrier will never be known, but thanks to this indelible book, readers can imagine Martha's life and, alas, her death."" --Ann Packer, author of The Children's Crusade ""Through lively characters and fast-paced storytelling, Markham-Cantor transports us directly into the world of the Salem witch trials. The Once & Future Witch Hunt clearly shows that there is nothing exceptional about the conditions in which witch hunts arise. Rather, we see how the urge to blame, scapegoat, and other is all too typically human."" --Miranda Forsyth, director of the International Network Against Accusations of Witchcraft and Associated Harmful Practices ""Alice Markham-Cantor has done a remarkable thing here. From the sparest bones of ancestor's story, she has fashioned a thoroughly engaging work of scholarship that is equal parts historical fiction, personal narrative, feminist theory, and a good old-fashioned detective yarn. In The Once & Future Witch Hunt, Markham-Cantor rescues Martha Carrier from one of the darkest corners of our nation's past. Her voice, and Markham-Cantor's too, will linger in your memory long after you've turned the final page."" --Alexandra Styron, author of Reading My Father ""Once started, I could not put this book down. The author's remote ancestor becomes a real person, whose death by hanging was provoked by neighbours' claims of her witchcraft, encouraged by religious leaders. The modern cases listed show such beliefs occurring world-wide and generating similar responses."" --Jean La Fontaine, author of Witches and Demons: A Comparative Perspective on Witchcraft and Satanism ""A scholarly and also magical interweaving of two stories, two historical periods, and two women's sensibilities: of the author, delving deep into the history of Salem and her own distant ancestor; and of that person, Martha Carrier....Through fictional recreations, Markham-Cantor brings to vivid life a sharp and independent woman, and how a community rallied around a crescendo of false accusations of her and others; and in passages detailing her own research journey, the author sets the destructive misogyny of that time in the wider context of witch trials before and since, in the United States and elsewhere. A compelling, eye-opening, and chilling read."" --Sylvia Brownrigg, author of The Whole Staggering Mystery"

"""This is the most vivid and accessible introduction to the world's most notorious witch trials that a newcomer is likely to find, and also a very timely warning for the present.""--Ronald Hutton, author of The Witch: A History of Fear, from Ancient Times to the Present ?""In this fascinating and powerful look at the story of one family caught up in the Salem witch trials, Alice Markham-Cantor performs a kind of literary magic, blending fact and fiction into a form perfectly suited to the troubling subject matter and the limits of the historical record. The exact truth of what happened to her ancestor Martha Carrier will never be known, but thanks to this indelible book, readers can imagine Martha's life and, alas, her death.""--Ann Packer, author of The Children's Crusade ""Through lively characters and fast paced-storytelling, Markham-Cantor transports us directly into the world of the Salem witch trials. The Once & Future Witch Hunt clearly shows that there is nothing exceptional about the conditions in which witch hunts arise. Rather, we see how the urge to blame, scapegoat, and other is all too typically human.""--Miranda Forsyth, director of the International Network Against Accusations of Witchcraft and Associated Harmful Practices"

Author Information

Alice Markham-Cantor is a writer and fact-checker from Brooklyn, New York. Her work has been published in New York Magazine, Scientific American, The Nation, and elsewhere. She serves on the working committee of the International Network Against Accusations of Witchcraft and Associated Harmful Practices ( TINAAWAHP ), and she spoke at the first and second Feminist Conferences on the Witch Hunts hosted by the Campana por la Memoria de las Brujas in Spain. She is the writer and co-producer of A Witch Story, an award-winning documentary about Salem and her research. Rebecca Traister is a writer based in New York. Her work has been published in New York magazine, Elle, The New Republic, Salon, The Nation, The New York Observer, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Vogue, Glamour and Marie Claire. She is the author of All the Single Ladies, Big Girls Don't Cry, and Good and Mad: The Revolutionary Power of Women's Anger. Silvia Federici is a New York-based scholar, teacher, and feminist who wrote Caliban and the Witch. She is a professor emerita and teaching fellow at Hofstra University in New York State, where she was a social science professor. She also taught at the University of Port Harcourt in Nigeria.

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