I don’t know how to handle this History question and need guidance.
Please write a 6 page essay,12 times roman, double spaced, MLA style, and rich text on the following Issue Taking sides essay:
Issue: Were Socioeconomic Tensions Responsible for the Witchcraft Hysteria in Salem?
YES: Paul Boyer and Stephen Nissenbaum, from Salem Possessed: The Social Origins of Witchcraft (Harvard University Press, 1974)
NO: Laurie Winn Carlson, from A Fever in Salem: A New Interpretation of the New England Witch Trials (Ivan R. Dee, 1999)
Paul Boyer and Stephen Nissenbaum argue that the Salem witchcraft hysteria of 1692 was prompted by economic and social tensions that occurred against the backdrop of an emergent commercial capitalism, conflicts between ministers and their congregations, and the loss of family lands, which divided the residents in Salem Town and Salem Village. Laurie Winn Carlson believes that the witchcraft hysteria in Salem was the product of people’s responses to physical and neurological behaviors resulting from an unrecognized epidemic of encephalitis.