Riveting...Fass gives us a tour of the crime parents fear most, offering one terrifying detail after another...In Fass's view, each kidnapping provides a warped mirror image of the society in which it takes place...By looking at how each era reacts to a particular abduction, she says, we can learn more about our own time.
-- San Francisco Chronicle

A heartfelt and disturbing book...Kidnapped is not only a convincing analysis of child abduction; it is a compelling example of how studies of the past can illuminate the present and suggest alternative futures.
-- Journal of American History

In analyzing the cases of Leopold and Loeb, the Lindbergh baby, and others, Fass finds that the publicity surrounding kidnapping has expressed some of our deepest concerns about law and family, gender and sexuality, crime and insanity...Fass's book is an original look at an important and historically neglected subject.
-- Lingua Franca