Our guest today is historian Mary Beth Norton. She's a professor of American

history at Cornell University, where she's taught since 1971. In 2005 to 2006,

she was also the pit professor of American history and institutions at the

University of Cambridge. She's received four honorary degrees and has held

fellowships from the Rockefeller, Guggenheim, Mellon, and Star Foundations, as well as

from Princeton University and the Huntington Library. She is currently the

president of the 12,000-member American Historical Association. My producers

Matt Frederick and Alex Williams had a chance to sit down with Professor Norton

this past summer, and I want to share that great conversation with you today.

So without further delay, let's get on with the show. This is the unobscurred

interview series for season one. I'm Erin Manky.

Beth Norton, I'm a professor of American history at Cornell University. I teach a

bunch of courses on early America and women. I have written several books, some of

which are related to Salem Witchcraft. One of which in particular is called

In the Devil's Snare, subtitle The Salem Witchcraft Crisis of 1692, and I

very deliberately subtitled it crisis rather than trials because the book is

much broader than the trials themselves. When you call it a crisis, it's because

there are so many things occurring outside of this very specific instance of

the witch trials. Can you talk about a few of those contributing factors? Well, I

think in my book I argue that the most important contributing factor is the

Indian War that's going on on the Northern Frontier. We don't really know

much about this war. I certainly didn't know much about it until it popped up as

...