On October 17, 1999 Lissa Roche, the editor of Hillsdale College Press and the daughter-in-law of the conservative school's president, Dr. George Roche III, was found dead in Hillsdale's Slayton Arboretum. Police promptly ruled her death a suicide. But when the authorities suppressed portions of her autopsy, refused to perform a ballistics test on the .357 that ended her life, cross-check key alibis, or find the keys that Lissa supposedly used to access her husband's gun, Lissa's death became an unresolved mystery. Based on exclusive interviews with family, friends and faculty, previously unpublished documents and in-depth research with insiders, this book examines an extraordinary tragedy and lets the reader be the judge.

For too long we’ve lacked a compact, inexpensive, authoritative, and compulsively readable book that offers American readers a clear, informative, and inspiring narrative account of their country. Such a fresh retelling of the American story is especially needed today, to shape and deepen young Americans’ sense of the land they inhabit, help them to understand its roots and share in its memories, all the while equipping them for the privileges and responsibilities of citizenship in American society The existing texts simply fail to tell that story with energy and conviction. Too often they reflect a fragmented outlook that fails to convey to American readers the grand trajectory of their own history. This state of affairs cannot continue for long without producing serious consequences. A great nation needs and deserves a great and coherent narrative, as an expression of its own self-understanding and its aspirations; and it needs to be able to convey that narrative to its young effectively. Of course, it goes without saying that such a narrative cannot be a fairy tale of the past. It will not be convincing if it is not truthful. But as Land of Hope brilliantly shows, there is no contradiction between a truthful account of the American past and an inspiring one. Readers of Land of Hope will find both in its pages.

"A masterpiece of contemporary Bible translation and commentary."—Los Angeles Times Book Review, Best Books of 1999 Acclaimed for its masterful new translation and insightful commentary, The David Story is a fresh, vivid rendition of one of the great works in Western literature. Robert Alter's brilliant translation gives us David, the beautiful, musical hero who slays Goliath and, through his struggles with Saul, advances to the kingship of Israel. But this David is also fully human: an ambitious, calculating man who navigates his life's course with a flawed moral vision. The consequences for him, his family, and his nation are tragic and bloody. Historical personage and full-blooded imagining, David is the creation of a literary artist comparable to the Shakespeare of the history plays.

Hillsdale was named in 1856 when its citizens adopted the name inspired by the Hillsdale School, built on Pascack Road, and the now historic Hillsdale Railroad Station, which formally opened for business on March 4, 1870. Almost as soon as the train pulled in, houses began to be built overlooking the tracks along Broadway, then Summit Avenue. A general store and a hotel opened to accommodate the influx of people, putting Hillsdale on the map. Along with the railroad, the opening of the George Washington Bridge in the early 1930s brought waves of migration from the crowded cities of New York, Patterson, and Jersey City, with people looking for land, clean air and water, and a place within reasonable distance to job markets. The migration proceeded at a leisurely pace until it was brought to a halt by World War II, but it developed into an engulfing wave with the war's end and today has almost completely saturated Hillsdale's available space. Hillsdale has come a long way from its days as a sleepy farming community to a thriving and desirable New York suburb.