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Title: Amish Roots: A Treasury of History, Wisdom, and Lore by John A. Hostetler ISBN: 0-8018-4402-9 Publisher: Johns Hopkins Univ Pr Pub. Date: May, 1992 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.5 (2 reviews)
Rating: 2
Summary: A partial and often boring picture
Comment: I bought this book because I was interested in learning about the way in which the Amish have managed to build a society free of the anguish and purposelessness so usual in ours. Well, this book only partially succeeded in giving me the information I wanted. I would gladly have exchanged uninteresting extracts, such as the homemade remedies and recipes, or the verses written by teenagers in their albums (in much the same way as many non-Amish teenagers I know), for more substantial information. Often, the author awoke my interest in one subject, but then did not provide enough information to satisfy that interest. The "what happened next" is usually lacking. For instance, I would have liked to know more about the Amish reaction to the movie "Witness", about which only a vague, disjointed letter is offered as a sample. At other times, the stories or extracts seem so irrelevant as to be laughable, as in the story about the man who bought a pair of shoes and left his old ones inside a box in the shop, to play a joke on the salesboy. The choice of illustrations (mostly of decorated front pages of Bibles, or fairly simple and unremarkable drawings)is poor, and could have been better if photographs of Amish people and their farmsteads had been included. Also, the "criticism of the Amish" section seems fairly mild when compared to the sky-high praise lavished on them in other selections. This makes the global picture rather subjective. Criticising their rejection of technology seems pretty lukewarm, when you think of more debatable subjects, such as the role of women in Amish society, or their preventing their children from attaining higher education. My intention here is not to criticize a society I'm only beginning to learn about (and which I find, I must confess, fascinating in its quiet way), but to highlight some aspects of it that are barely dwelt upon in this book, which seems concerned only with showing the Amish in the most favorable light. Maybe the general dullness and scantness of the material is due to what the author of the book mentions throughout - the reluctance of the Amish to write about themselves. If so, it's a pity, for, in "Amish Roots", you only get a dull and colorless picture of what is undoubtedly a complex and mistifying way of life.
Rating: 5
Summary: An honest portayal of the life if the "Plain People"
Comment: Slow down and savour each page of this gem... "We are not Amish, we are Christians. Amish is just a nickname. We don't need to be ashamed that people call us that but we shouldn't build on the Amish name." William A. Yoder
This quote from the book sticks most in my mind after reading this collection of first-hand accounts of Amish life, gathered from personal and family documents by the Amish people themselves, dating from the 1700's to the present day.
This is their story, told their way. I found that most refreshing.
An honest portrayal of a community of people struggling to maintain the purity of their faith and love for their fellow man in a world that seems set to undermine everything they stand for. Rightly called a "Treasury", and presenting both the joys and the hardships of the Amish way of life, this book was hard to put down, and left me aching for a time when the world and the way we lived in it was much simpler fare.....
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Title: Amish Society by John A. Hostetler ISBN: 0801844428 Publisher: Johns Hopkins Univ Pr Pub. Date: July, 1993 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
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Title: Amish Enterprise: From Plow to Profits by Donald B. Kraybill, Steven M. Nolt, Dennis L. Hughes ISBN: 0801850630 Publisher: Johns Hopkins Univ Pr Pub. Date: November, 1995 List Price(USD): $18.95 |
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Title: Amish Women: Lives and Stories by Louise Stoltzfus ISBN: 1561481297 Publisher: Good Books Pub. Date: March, 2002 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: The Amish in Their Own Words: Amish Writings from 25 Years of Family Life Magazine by Brad Igou ISBN: 0836191234 Publisher: Herald Pr Pub. Date: October, 1999 List Price(USD): $19.99 |
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Title: The Riddle of Amish Culture (Center Books in Anabaptist Studies) by Donald B. Kraybill ISBN: 080186772X Publisher: Johns Hopkins Univ Pr Pub. Date: December, 2001 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
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