3 reviews for:

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

Richard Francis

3.0 AVERAGE

bamandia's review against another edition

i really wanted to finish this book...but, i mean, it's been on my "currently reading" list for over 4 months now...so, i'm putting it aside. perhaps to pick up another day.

as interesting as i find the idea of the book, the writing was not at all able to pull me in and make me want to read about it.

unfortunate.

noahbw's review against another edition

3.0

This really is just a biography of Sewall, with the Witch Trials and his later apology making up just some of the pivotal parts of the book. I enjoyed this most for the life it gives to early Boston/New England/America and especially Puritanism (and Old South!). Although many "irrelevant" facts of Sewall's life ended up being significant and/or interesting, some of the other details Francis recounted from Sewall's diary got a little uninteresting to me.

competencefantasy's review against another edition

3.0

I was excited for the topic and the idea being presented, but I don't think it lands. There is a focus problem. The book spends too much time on topics that are neither woven into an interesting portrait of Sewall the person nor well explained as connected to his apology. The exegesis of the apology therefore comes across as a stretch.