Arthur Miller's classic parable of mass hysteria draws a chilling parallel between the witch hunt in Salem in 1692 - 'one of the strangest and most awful chapters in human history' - and the anti-communist purges led by Senator McCarthy in the 1950s. The story of how the small community of Salem is stirred into madness by superstition, paranoid fear, and malice escalates into a violent climax, providing a fierce denunciation of the evils of mindless persecution and the terrifying power of false accusations. A portrayal of innocent men and women destroyed by malicious rumors, The Crucible is also a powerful indictment of McCarthyism and the 'frontier mentality' of America during the Cold War.