Witch-Children: From Salem Witch-Hunts to Modern Courtrooms. By Hans Sebald. Prometheus Books, Amherst, N.Y, 1995. ISBN 0-87975-965-8. 258 pp. Hardcover, $24.95

Throughout the history of human justice, a key problem has been to determine how reliable children's testimony is. A few centuries ago, the perceived reliability of children's testimony was a key factor in many witchcraft trials. Often innocents were executed following the damning testimony of a child. Today, particularly in cases of alleged sexual abuse of children that sometimes includessatanic-rirual abuse, we once again often see the guilt or innocence of die accused decided on the same sort of evidence.

In this groundbreaking work, WitchChildren: From Salem Witch-Hunts to Modern Courtrooms, Hans Sebald examines children's testimony from both eras and draws parallels. Almough the information is good and the parallels well drawn, in my opinion the book suffers from overly long stretches in which it dwells too much on the dark history of European witchcraft trials. Although the witchcraft trials are important and interesting in their own right, the book jacket seems to promise a text that grapples more with the important modern social issue of children's courtroom testimony. Instead, the topic of children's present-day courtroom testimony is virtually ignored in much of the book.

In Part One, Sebald, professor emeritus of sociology at Arizona State University, discusses how children can easily suffer from "mythomania"—a tendency to imagine fanciful scenes and events and later come to believe them as fact. Among children, the author says, this is quite common and normal. Mythomania in a child becomes more readily active when the child's imagination is led by adults who expect the child to say certain things. The author describes the culture of the fifteenth- to the early eighteenth-century witchhunters and inquisition and describes how fearful society was of the imaginary threat of witchcraft. He describes how such a society could lead a child not only into testifying against others but. surprisingly, even into testifying against himself or herself. Parallels are drawn with modern practices of using children's testimony to support accusations of sexual abuse of children that sometimes includes satanic-ritual abuse

The focus on history is most apparent in Part Two. Here we are offered a detailed examination of the confession of a 9-year-old child known only as "the Witchboy." Responding to an accusation in 1629 in Bramberg, Germany— without torture, but under the threat— the Witchboy gave the inquisition an elaborate and highly detailed confession claiming that he had been involved in a variety of sorcerous and black magic activities. The motivations for this confession, as well as the social and historical context in which they are placed, are discussed in full.

Those interested in the witch trials should gain much from the well-done description in this fascinating book. Nevertheless, it is doubtful those interested in modern courtroom activities will benefit much from such an elaborate and detailed description in this documentation of the role of children in seventeenth-century German society.

In Part Three, parallels are drawn much more strongly between historical and modern behavior. At one point the author mentions multiple personality disorder, a possible result of abuse, without discussing that the diagnosis is highly controversial and many believe it to be nothing more than iatrogenic malingering by patients anxious to please a therapist. His references to false memory syndrome, although appropriate, are backed up by very few sources. Still, overall this section is well done and perhaps the best part of the book.

Lately, I have become involved in the issue of how innocent people can become falsely accused of sexual abuse of children. Child abuse and sexual abuse of children are terrible and must be prevented, but no good occurs by punishing those innocently accused. Furthermore, I am troubled by the way in which those charged are often treated as guilty until proven innocent, particularly when children, often highly coaxed and trained children, testify against them.

Would I recommend this work to those who share my concern? The answer is yes, I would recommend it highly, but I would encourage people to begin at Part Three, followed by Part One, and then, only if they're interested in the history of Germany or witchcraft trials, turn to the ninety pages that make up Part Two of the work. Those interested exclusively in the witchcraft trials may reverse this order. Having done so, I expect they will find this an informative and fascinating book.

Peter Huston writes from Schenectady, N.Y.