Amish Society

Many readers probably bought this book after visiting an Amish community or seeing a Hollywood movie that triggered their curiosity for a culture and a way of life that seem to defy the passing of time. For most people, it will be the first and also perhaps the last ethnographic study that they read. They couldn't have fallen on a better piece of work. Not only will they learn a wealth of facts about the Amish, their history, their beliefs, and their social organization, but they will also come across a fine scholarly work that makes use of the distinctive methods of the social sciences in a thoroughly accessible way. Anthropology, like its related disciplines - ethnology, sociology, cultural studies -, is often given a bad name because of its heavy use of abstruse jargon, its taste for intellectual virtuosity and its rejection of scholarly traditions built on the accumulation of facts in favor of mind games and ideological squabbles. Very often the author's ego takes center stage and the object of his or her enquiry is relegated to a mere pretext. Scholars are therefore not identified with the portion of the social world that they have studied and the realities of life that they have shed light on, but with the schools of thought or -isms that compete against each other for intellectual supremacy. As these theoretical constructs are mere passing fads, the work of these scholars soon fall into oblivion. Little remains of the contribution they have made to the knowledge and understanding of a subject. Hostetler's Amish Society is a testimony that an anthropological monograph can be relevant for the public at large and pass the test of time - the first edition was published in 1963, and the author has fully revised his text several times before coming up with this last edition. The result is a fine study that covers every aspects of the Amish's social life. It starts with the origin of these Anabaptist communities in the region stretching from the Bern canton to the Palatinate, lists their articles of faith that find their origins in the Schleitheim Articles and the Dodrecht Confession, maps their settlement across the plains of the New World in successive waves of emigration, describes the great agricultural skills of these peasants who transformed the soils they toiled into the most productive lands in the world, goes through every stage of the Amish family life cycle, details their worldviews and symbolic interactions, explains their relations with the "modern world" and the way they cope with change, and much more. Readers might be surprised to learn that the groups of Amish and related "Plain People" (Old Order Hutterites, Mennonites, Brethren) are actually quite diverse in terms of their acceptance and use of technology and in their relationships with the outside world. What they have in common is a sense of fellowship drawn from a literal interpretation of the Scriptures. One scripture often quoted in Amish worship services is Romans 12:

I purchased the book Amish Society at Lapp's farm in Lancaster County. A book that even the Amish feel is good enough to sell themselves -- worked for me. I didn't read it until I got home from Lancaster Co., PA but it certainly explained a lot of things to me like why I saw cars in the yards of some of the Amish homes, why I saw Amish teenage boys smoking cigarettes, and how Amish sects differ. As a grand-daughter of a related sect of plain people, The Hutterities, it was interesting to see how the Amish were similar to the Hutterites and how they differ. In a way it seemed like voyeurism to discover what the private lives of these very private people are like. This is highly recommended anyone visiting the Amish or wanting ot learn more about them.

The author is a professor emeritus from Temple University and grew up in an Old-Order Amish family. So in addition to academic credentials, the author has lived the life he describes so well in this book.While this is not a travelogue for those wishing a tour of Amish Country, it would be a very good thing to read before you go to Lancaster, PA or any of the other Amish-settled areas in the US and Canada. Dr. Hostetler describes attitudes to "the English World", the religious and daily life, and how the Amish merge with their secular neighbors. The book also describes a bit of the struggle the Amish faced in the 60's when they sought permission to have their own schools and end formal educatiion for their children at grade 8. While he says little about it, Hostetler's own life must have been affected by this attitude to what is required in education; he left the community to become a university professor, and subsequently lived with the Hutterites, another religious society in Canada and Europe.This is an enjoyable and realistic book with no sentimentality or gloss. If you want to know more about the Amish, this is definitely the book to read.

Clearly one of the leading authorities on the Amish, Hostetler's book is a well-researched and well-written look at a group of people struggling to maintain their traditional ways in our modern society. This is an excellent introduction to the Amish.

This is a superb, comprehensive book covering most facets of interest in Amish life. Concentrating on the Old Order Amish, it also provides history and perspective on most of the major Amish schisms, touches on the Mennonites by way of their relationships to the Amish, and gives a good overview of Anabaptist history to boot. The text is very readable and organized by topic. A first time reader would do well to read cover-to-cover, but it can be browsed by chapter once the major terminology and concepts have been learned. Hostetler grew up Amish. The book is a sociological study, written sympathetically. It would be a slight distortion to say it was written from the Amish point of view, but it does succeed in conveying that point of view. It does so accurately with sufficient examples and documentation to be conclusive. Not a coffee table book, not a picture book, this is a readable reference work that you will use again. Quoted and used by many others writing about the Amish, the author is a highly respected authority on the subject.