For being such a geographically small city, Salem, Massachusetts continues to carry a big name solely for the events that took place between February of 1692 and March of 1693. When one hears the word “Salem," it is more than likely that this person will think of words such as “witchcraft," "hanging" and “hysteria." Many are shocked and appalled by the seeming complete lack of justice and sanity that occurred during the Salem Witch Trials of 1692, when nineteen individuals were put to their death for crimes they did not commit. Numerous books, articles, and films have sought to restate the tragic events that happened that year, but rarely has anyone attempted to explain why exactly they happened. Inspired by an assignment at the University of Massachusetts to retell an event in history using only primary sources, Paul Boyer and Stephen Nissenbaum teamed up to write Salem Possessed in an attempt to shed new light on the notorious Salem Witch Trials of 1692 in such a way that has never been done before. Boyer and Nissenbaum's purpose in creating their narrative was to inform the public that the witch trials of the 1600’s were not completely random acts of tyranny and hatred, but were entirely premeditated ideas that built up over time, fueled by certain problematic social issues and a population’s resentment of change. The authors, frustrated by the glorification and misconstruction of the trials by other authors, took an entirely different approach to examining the trials by focusing solely on primary sources of the period such as: tax assessments, lists of government officials, community votes, and church documents. Shockingly, none of these records had ever been thoroughly examined before Salem Possessed was written. Previous to the discovery of these sources, the extent of knowledge possessed about Salem was that it was a small farming village where three girls named Abigail Williams, Betty Parris, and Ann Putnam began displaying signs of demonic possession after performing fortune telling rituals, thus catapulting the entire city into extreme hysteria characterized by mass “witch hunts." It is important to note that this particular novel does not focus much on the events themselves, but the social and economic causes of the occurrences. In fact, Boyer and Nissenbaum do not spend much time on the retelling of the trials, and leave them to the prologue. The book itself focuses solely on accounts representing significant factors that