Bøger af CL Gammon

In 1692, it did not pay to be a nonconformist in Salem Village, Massachusetts. This was especially true if the nonconformist just happened to be an elderly, improvised widow. Susannah Martin found this out the hard way. Susannah Martin stood trial, received a conviction, and suffered hanging for bewitching some of the good folk of Salem, Massachusetts and the surrounding area. More than two dozen persons related the crimes Martin committed. It seems that Susannah Martin's most heinous crime may have been that she had a sense of humor. When she heard the ridiculous accusations made against her, she laughed aloud. When the stern judge asked her what she was laughing at, she replied, "Well I may at such folly." While Martin's laughter may have doomed her, it is unlikely that she would have escaped even if she had been somber and had held her tongue. This brief volume deals with the accusations against, the trial, the conviction, and the execution of Susannah Martin for the infamous crime of witchcraft. While Martin was just one of the twenty persons killed by authorities in Salem (at least five others died in jail), her story is unique to the extent that she was one of the very few accused persons who saw and pointed out publicly the absurdity of the whole affair. Sadly, her story is not a comedy; it is a tragedy. Had the accusers, or more so, the judges been as able to release a boisterous laugh as was Susanna Martin, we would view Salem Village in 1692 in a very different light.

Tricky Dick Nixon's Dirty Trickster deals with the acts, many criminal, Donald Segretti and his large network of agents conducted on the behalf of the Nixon campaign in 1972. It also recounts Segretti's associations with others involved in pro-Nixon dirty tricks. Among Segretti's associates were John Dean and G. Gordon Liddy. Both Dean and Liddy became famous - and went to jail - because of their involvement in the Watergate break-in and the subsequent cover-up of that burglary.The author interviewed Segretti several times about his dirty tricks enterprise and gleaned firsthand information about the operation from its leader. Though brief, the book is comprehensive in detailing Segretti's covert operation; what it accomplished; and its lasting effects on American.

The Politics of the Crucifixion is not a religious book in any way. I do know something about the dynamics of politics, however, and it was the political motivations of both supporters and opponents of Jesus that led me to author The Politics of the Crucifixion. Let me note one thing before going on. Here in the United States, we equate politics with popular elections. However, politics is just as prevalent in those nations that do not practice free elections as it is in those that do. In fact, it is often more prevalent. In those lands without popular elections, politicians are just as likely react to public pressures as are elected politicians elsewhere. Therefore, even though voters did not elect Roman Governors or Judean Kings, those rulers were not immune to politics. On the contrary, Roman and Judean rulers allowed ordinary citizens to sway them at every turn. The political pressures bearing down on Herod and Pilate made the execution of Jesus impossible to avoid. Herod feared that making Jesus a martyr and Pilate loathed executing an innocent man. Yet, the enemies of Jesus, and the mob they gathered around them, refused to allow these powerful men to leave Jesus alive. Politics infected those that followed Jesus as well. The Gospels illustrate the political motivations of the Apostles. The motivations the Apostles (often as petty and ugly as those of the opponents of Jesus) were in some ways just as much a cause of the crucifixion as were the motivations of the Judeans and the Romans. While I understand that writing about Jesus and the crucifixion in political terms may offend some Christians, I do not believe that the truth should ever offend anyone.