COLLEGE DRIVE, OHIO.- For seven years, Andrew Moisey had an all-access pass to photograph Greek life inside a prominent US fraternity house where his brother was a member. One day, Moisey stumbled upon a wax-stained, sixty-year-old ritual manual abandoned on the floor. The idea for an "iIlustrated manual" was born. Moisey scanned the manual pages and then digitally inserted his contemporary pictures in them so that they appeared next to the old imagery and texts. The resulting pages are published in The American Fraternity, the first photo book to expose the dark, two-century-world of fraternities.

The first edition of The American Fraternity, which has received critical acclaim worldwide, sold out just two weeks after its release on November 6, 2018. The second printing will hit stores later this month. An accompanying exhibition will travel to noted US university galleries across the country. The first leg of the tour kicks off this week at Kenyon University.

Moisey's photographs contrast the high-minded constitution of the fraternity with its often underlying violent, misogynistic reality. Moisey writes: "As you turn the pages, you will marvel at the rituals, initiation ceremonies, historic texts, and the candid, often disturbing photographs. You will begin to understand why the college fraternity is not a passing phase, but the historical fountain of leadership for a hubristic, chauvinistic, male pleasure fortress -- the modern United States.

Many of the young men depicted in The American Fraternity are the future leaders of American institutions and families. Moisey's photographs help us understand why forty percent of American college students cast their only vote, in the year 2016, for Donald Trump. At the end of the book, Moisey lists prominent Americans in both the public and private sector who are or were in college fraternities.

Cynthia Robinson, a professor and novelist, contributes an essay entitled "Girl Play" that discusses the humiliating roles that women often succumb to at the notorious frat parties, and why they do it. Robinson writes from first-hand experience as a former Frat-House Aphrodite: "A sheltered Southern girl eager to bust out, I was a frat-house regular by the end of my first semester ... I was an A student, but I didn't discuss my A's at the frat house. I was there because I wanted reassurance on a certain score: that I could be a certain thing, be a certain way. The girls in the images that comprise this book are there for the same reasons."

Nicholas L. Syrett, a professor and author, contributes the book's afterword. He writes: "Sociological data about fraternities from the past twenty years demonstrates that fraternity brothers are more likely to perpetrate sexual assault than nonaffiliated men on campus ... This is not to say that all fraternity brothers are likely to participate in such law-breaking, just that the single-sex environment of the fraternity both encourages men to see women as sexual objects rather than as peers and inculcates the loyalty to help brothers cover up the crimes."

A third essay, which is folded and inserted into the book, is an anthropological research paper written by a Fraternity Brother. While poorly crafted, it succeeds in capturing the essence of fraternity mentality. The paper includes comments from the graduate students who graded the paper, many of whom poke fun at its author.

Designed by Ursula Damn, American Fraternity has a black, soft, leather-bound design that follows its fraternity's original ritual manual. Measuring an intimate 6 x 8 inches, it resembles the kind of 'sanctified' book one might find in a cult.

Cynthia Robinson is Professor of History of Art and Visual Studies at Cornell University, where she also serves as Chair of Undergraduate Studies in the History of Art. Nicholas L. Syrett is professor of women, gender, and sexuality studies at the University of Kansas and author of The Company He Keeps: A History of White College Fraternities and American Child Bride: A History of Minors and Marriage in the United States.

Andrew Moisey is an award-winning photographer and educator. He is Assistant Professor of Art History and Visual Studies, a Rosevear Faculty Fellow at Cornell University. He received his Ph.D. in Film and Media Studies (May 2014) at the University of California, Berkeley.