Masked Mysteries Unmasked: Early Modern Music Theater And Its Pyphagorian Subtext is a painstakingly researched and superbly written benchmark treatise that is a highly recommended and scholarly addition to any academic library collection. Kristin Rygg's informative introduction defines the Masque and provides its historical identity. She goes on to cover English Court Masques in historical contexts; the "Ballet de Cour" and the "Academie de Boif"; Pythagoras and the Society of the Elect; Music and the Arts in the Pythagorean World View; Pythagoreanism and the Renaissance; The Unveiling of Circe; and Pythagoreanism and the English Court Masque. Her concluding summary is followed by two appendices: The Pythagorean Source Material and Its Transmission to the Renaissance and Renaissance Editions of Ancient Sources on Pythagoreanism and a Selection of Renaissance Publications containing Pythagorean Lore. Masked Mysteries Unmasked is enhanced for the student with a bibliography, list of illustrations, and an index.

Olasky's "Press and Abortion" needs an update. There's good stuff here, as Olasky presents a remarkably balanced view of how the press presented the issue and practice of abortion from 1838-1988.

Unfortunately, it stops at 1988. However, the quality of what is here is amazing, and is a great starting point for any media or historian hoping to understand what has been published on abortion.

Detractors might brand Olasky as a conservative not doing an honest job to a topic requiring more than a slanted viewpoint to research the book. Those detractors would've missed this gem. Olasky worked with the abortion backers such as the National Abortion Federation and Planned Parenthood of NYC who provided access to much necessary documents. Similarly, he was able to find help from groups fighting abortion, like the Pro-Life Action League and Christian Action Council (founded by Billy Graham/C Everett Koop/OJ Brown). This support from both sides of the issue is unusual, and increases the value of "Press and Abortion."

Olasky begins with an assessment of things as they were in the early-mid 1800s. The now liberal Anglican, Presbyterian and Congregationalist churches were decisively against abortion. He cites from emphatic antiabortion statements by Wadworth (who became president at Harvard) and John Calvin to set the tone that America began, or at least was at that point in time, antiabortion.

He generaly avoids consideration of the issue as a religious or moral matter, but merely shows how the press--largely the newspapers, but also some magazines--handled abortion as a news and editorial issue.

Abortion began, he explains, in part, as a business decision by a couple placing ads in a major NY paper. They offered abortive services through a midwifery business, pretending to be physicians.

Olasky slowly develops the chronology to indicate how the popular press was reconformed, as a whole, into a new ideology of campaigning for abortion, how physicians sold abortive services for $5. The NY Times went from pro-life to pro-choice, and he cites the massive percentage of articles they published for abortion (90%).

He presents the public relation machine behind pro-choice organization, and the response of the "Detroit Free Press," "Washington Post" and others.

He highlights 1962 as a key year in pro-choice ideology, as the press seemed to make a large jump in writing stories about abortion clinic raids by the police, defining abortion as murder, and then decrying those who would deny abortions, claiming women needed liberating. Olasky discusses several important public events and editorials supporting this.

Later, he talks about Dr. Bernard Nathanson, once the founder of the Nat'l Abortion Rights Action League, but who became so pro-life that he developed a film portraying the pain the fetus feels mid-abortion, and how various press reviewers dismissed the short documentary as not scientific. NARAL, feeling no doubt quite slighted, panned the film.

Olasky finishes with some discussion of the fetal tissue transplant issue.

It is documented very well, with over 40 pp in an annotated works cited list.

Needed in an update are a timeline, explanation of what the stem cell issue is all about, and how the press has covered it.

I fully recommend "Press and Abortion" by Marvin N. Olasky for both conservatives and liberals, but both sides are likely to find concerns that their views were not covered well. Only for the open-minded, and thick skinned.

Anthony Trendl

As an alumnus of Hillsdale College and someone who knows practically every person quoted in this book, I was disappointed. The author fails to look beneath the surface of the tragedy at Hillsdale and takes the easy route of casting aspersions on former Hillsdale President George Roche III and his son, Lissa's husband, George Roche IV. While these two were certainly not perfect, the author fails to understand that much of the turmoil within the college and the faculty was going on well before the events chronicled in the book. Unfortunately, the author relies on information and interviews from questionable sources and current faculty members who are obviously attempting to protect their reputations as well as that of the college -- for example his usage of information from the Hillsdale Liberation Organization is questionable being that the "HLO" is actually a group of dissatisfied former students from the college. The death of Lissa Roche may deserve further examination, but it needs to be done by someone who understands the politics and powerplays as they happened at Hillsdale College over the past 15-20 years, not just the past 2 or 3. The author fails to provide a compelling case for his claim that Lissa was murdered and he also fails to explain the situation at Hillsdale that apparently led her to take her own life.

This book provides a very nice review of Hillsdale College's dedication to further education without government intervention. It also reviews the recent tragic death of Lissa Roche. While the latter issue is interesting, I found the historical review of the college's committment to independence most uplifting. Decades before Affirmative Action was put into place, Hillsdale College denied government assistance so that minorities and women could attend its school - helping them fulfill their dreams.

Based upon the author's premise that "there is not one single shred of evidence that (she) actually committed suicide," Roger Rapoport's "Hillsdale: Greek Tragedy in America's Heartland" seeks to open up what certainly has to be one of the more controversial police investigations (and findings) in recent memory.

Lissa Jackson Roches, dauthter-in-law of the college president and noted editor in collegiate academic circles, is found dead in the Slayton Arboretum of Hillsdale College, itself a noted--and respected--liberal arts college . When the facts are laid out by the author, of course, this book, indeed, resembles something right out of Aeschylus or Euripides--or for perhaps many of the modern audience--a soap opera.

Alas, however, this death and "investigation"is not fiction and Rapoport is determined that, as in "Hamlet," "Something is rotten in the state of Denmark." In this case, it's a peaceful college town in Michigan, complete with its own set of codes, secrets, innuendo, and tragedy.

Rapoport's examination of the case is done with an eye to the critical, taking the official police and court findings and, looking askance at what he finds, begins his own investigation, as it were. His line of thought, his own questions, indeed, do raise more than "a reasonable doubt." He also presents the other individuals involved--her family members, acquaintances, and friends, making the "Orestia" seem somewhat tame! So many questions, so little time--and, to make further the analogy to a soap opera, so few advertisers to pay for opening up this melodrama!

Rapoport, who presents himself as a disinterested party, certainly raises enough questions that, to me--or any other third party--should warrant a re-investigation, this time as a homocide. His thorough backgrounding of the scenario and its players is also impressive. Rapoport, already an established author and literary investigator, present his book in a style that is quite readable without being melodramatic.

It will be interesting to see what impact it has on the Michigan authorities. Not to re-open this case should, indeed, raise even more questions into the infrastructure of this death. Good luck, Mr. Rapoport! (Billyjhobbs@tyler.net)

As true crime stories go, this was not one of my favorites. The author spends alot of time detailing background on every new detective, wife, bailiff etc. that enters the picture. I prefer when they stick to the subject story and I found myself skipping over alot of detail that really did not affect the main story at all.

I read lots of true crime and I thought this one was pretty good. Good storyline, well researched and well written.