Writing the Amish

David L. Weaver-Zercher is Associate Professor of American Religious History at Messiah College. He is the author of The Amish in the American Imagination (2001).John A. Hostetler (1918–2001) was Professor Emeritus of Anthropology and Sociology at Temple University, where he taught from 1965 to 1985. From 1986 to 1989 he served as director of the Young Center for the Study of Anabaptist and Pietist Groups at Elizabethtown College.

• ContentsList of IllustrationsForewordAnn HostetlerPreface and AcknowledgmentsDavid L. Weaver-ZercherPart I: Perspectives on John A. Hostetler1. An Amish BeginningJohn A. Hostetler, with Susan Fisher Miller2. The Redemptive Community: An Island of Sanity and SilenceDonald B. Kraybill3. Plain Folk and Folk Society: John A. Hostetler’s Legacy of the Little CommunitySimon J. Bronner4. An Uneasy Calling: John A. Hostetler and the Work of Cultural MediationDavid L. Weaver-ZercherPart II: Writings of John A. Hostetler5. Letter to Amish Bishops Concerning Shunning (1944)6. Toward a New Interpretation of Sectarian Life in America (1951)7. Excerpt from Amish Life (1952)8. God Visits the Amish (1954)9. Why Is Everybody Interested in the Pennsylvania Dutch? (1955)10. The Amish Use of Symbols and Their Function in Bounding the Community (1964)11. Persistence and Change Patterns in Amish Society (1964)12. The Amish Way of Life Is at Stake (1966)13. Old Order Amish Child Rearing and Schooling Practices: A Summary Report (1970)14. Folk Medicine and Sympathy Healing Among the Amish (1976)15. The Amish and the Law: A Religious Minority and Its Legal Encounters (1984)16. Marketing the Amish Soul (1984)17. A New Look at the Old Order (1987)18. Toward Responsible Growth and Stewardship of Lancaster County’s Landscape (1989)The Life of John A. Hostetler: A ChronologyThe Publications of John A. Hostetler: A BibliographyContributorsIndex

“John Hostetler’s quiet influence has reached every aspect of Amish studies. He knows more about the Amish than anyone else, for he combines the experience of being raised Amish, of having Amish siblings, with academic studies on most aspects of Amish culture. . . . But his contributions have gone much further than academia. By influencing the dominant culture, he has contributed to the growth and survival of the culture he chose to leave.”—Gertrude E. Huntington