The Devil on Trial: Witches, Anarchists, Atheists, Communists, and Terrorists in America’s Courtrooms (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: The Devil on Trial: Witches, Anarchists, Atheists, Communists, and Terrorists in America’s Courtrooms Deborah Stevenson Margulies Phillip The Devil on Trial: Witches, Anarchists, Atheists, Communists, and Terrorists in America’s Courtrooms; by Phillip Margulies Maxine Rosaler. Houghton, 2008218p illus. with photographs ISBN 978-0-618-71717-0 $22.00 Ad Gr. 7-10 The devil, in Margulies and Rosaler’s terms, is a defendant who symbolizes “something greater than the crime of which they are accused” and who embodies “a threat that faces the community as a whole.” After an explanatory introduction, they go on to examine five trials of such defendants: the Salem witch trials, the Haymarket bomb trial, the Scopes “monkey” trial, the two Alger Hiss trials, and the trials of Zacarias Moussaoui. Each chapter discusses the cultural context for the trial’s significance and its aftermath as well as providing an overview of the legal proceedings themselves. It’s a praiseworthy approach in its originality and its serious implications, and the trials are well chosen for the purpose of the discussion; the authors are particularly careful to ensure this is an examination of a phenomenon rather than a defense of the wrongly tried, pointing out, for instance, that subsequent evidence from the Soviet Union has further implicated Hiss. The individual narratives, though, often unfold confusingly, backing into the story and burying salient facts, and specific points are also at times muddy (for example, a section talking about the Scopes jury veers suddenly into discussing the grand jury instead, a distinction likely to be lost on many young readers). The book also lacks the overall synthesis and overt continuing thread that would have made it a compelling cohesive approach rather than a series of case studies. Nonetheless, it’s a challenging and substantive theory that should set young social scientists thinking—and arguing. Photographs appear throughout; endnotes, a bibliography, and an index are included. [End Page 85] Copyright © 2008 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois