Amish Roots: A Treasury of History, Wisdom, and Lore (Center Books in Anabaptist Studies) - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0801837693 ISBN 13: 9780801837692

Publisher: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989

Synopsis

It isn't the way of the Amish to write about themselves. But John A. Hostetler, author of the best- selling Amish Society, has put together a delightful anthology in which they do just that. More than 150 rare and unusual letters and journal entries, poems and stories, riddles, legends, and bits of family lore offer a uniquely authentic view of Amish life from colonial times to the present. Illustrated with 25 pages of full-color illustrations, this is the Amish story as told by the Amish themselves, by their friends and neighbors, and by others who understand Amish ways.

Hans Nussbaum, a nineteenth-century Swiss immigrant, writes to friends of a rough Atlantic crossing and a hard life in the Ohio Valley, suggesting that his "sleepy and lazy" cousins stay home in Europe. Virgil Detweiler tells of an ancestor's arrival at the port of colonial Philadelphia with personal baggage that included 5 copper stills, 30 stoves, 596 scythes, and 8 flutes. (He lost it all to King George's alert customs men.) In 1863 Amish bishop Daniel Beachy faces down a company of Confederate cavalry who try to steal his horse on a muddy Maryland highway. And an Amish teen- ager writes of life in a Pennsylvania prison after refusing military service during World War II.

But Amish Roots is more than an anthology of Amish history. Here Amish men and women speak out. On America. The decline of the family. Health and home remedies. Farming. They offer three centuries' wisdom on issues ranging from raising a barn to raising children, from getting along with neighbors to breaking in a team of mules. They tell what's wrong with public schools and share strategies for coping with government officials, aggressive reporters, and tourists. Converts to the faith tell their story. Those who leave the faith describe life among the "English."

Throughout, the Amish deal with the modern world in ways that often temper outright rejection with quiet compromise. In 1850, newly arrived Amish immigrants are astonished at the sight of the Mississippi sidewheeler that will take them from New Orleans to their new home in Illinois. More than a century later, an Amish tourist in Europe offers a first-hand account of crossing the English Channel by Hovercraft.

About this title

About the Author

John A. Hostetler is author of the best-selling Amish Society and the widely acclaimed Hutterite Society, both available from Johns Hopkins. Raised in the Amish faith, he is founding director of the Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies at Elizabethtown College in Elizabethtown,Pennsylvania, and a former professor of anthropology and sociology at Temple University.

Reviews

Though the Amish traditionally shun higher education and seldom write about themselves, they speak with an engaging frankness in this rare and welcome anthology of testimonials. Hostetler ( Amish Society ), a sociologist raised in the Amish faith, compiles writing by and about the Amish from journals and letters, family and farm records, newspaper stories, poems, songs and stories. Ranging from the observations of the first Anabaptist immigrants in the 1700s to the present, the over 150 entries--commenting on church, family life, work, school and the rich Amish agricultural heritage--form a remarkably complete portrait of a complex and often misunderstood society. And while the collection includes historical essays and analysis by non-Amish (Archibald MacLeish, Wendell Berry, Lord Snowdon), the most revealing writing comes from the Amish themselves. Hostetler's skillful selection of pieces reveals, like a patchwork quilt, a stunning whole. Illustrations not seen by PW.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

With his previous book, Amish Society (Johns Hopkins, 1980. 3d ed.), Hostetler has already provided an introduction to the plain folk. His new work is a different sort of introduction, one that brings together more than 150 stories, poems, legends, and other brief documents written by the Amish themselves and a few essays by those well acquainted with them. These pieces are grouped into 20 chapters with titles such as "Coming to America," "Agriculture and Everyday Life," and "Amish Schools." Hostetler also provides a helpful chronology of Amish history. Readers not only gain insight into this small but important segment of our society but are challenged to consider the course our society is taking. An important sourcebook for many collections.
- John Moryl, Yeshiva Univ. Lib., New York
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: The Johns Hopkins University Press
• Publication date: 1989
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0801837693
• ISBN 13: 9780801837692
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 360
• Editor: Hostetler Professor John A.