"What do the traditional plain-living Amish have to teach twenty-first-century Americans in our hyper-everything world? As it turns out, quite a lot!
It sounds audacious, but it's true: the Amish have much to teach us. It may seem surreal to turn to one of America's most traditional groups for lessons about living in a hyper-tech world—especially a horse-driving people who resist ""progress"" by snubbing cars, public grid power, and high school education. Still, their wisdom confirms that even when they seem so far behind, they're out ahead of the rest of us.
Having spent four decades researching Amish communities, Donald B. Kraybill is in a unique position to share important lessons from these fascinating Plain people. In this inspiring book, we learn intriguing truths about community, family, education, faith, forgiveness, aging, and death from real Amish men and women. The Amish are ahead of us, for example, in relying on apprenticeship education. They have also out-Ubered Uber for nearly a century, hiring cars owned and operated by their neighbors. Kraybill also explains how the Amish function in modern society by rejecting new developments that harm their community, accepting those that enhance it, and adapting others to fit their values.
Pairing storytelling with informative and reflective passages, these twenty-two essays offer a critique of modern culture that is provocative yet practical. In a time when civil discourse is raw and coarse and our social fabric seems torn asunder, What the Amish Teach Us uproots our assumptions about progress and prods us to question why we do what we do.
Essays include:
1. Riddles: Negotiating with Modernity 2. Villages: Webs of Well-Being 3. Community: Taming the Big ""I"" 4. Smallness: Bigness Ruins Everything 5. Tolerance: A Light on a Hill 6. Spirituality: A Back Road to Heaven 7. Family: A Deep and Durable Bond 8. Children: At Worship, Work, and Play 9. Parenting: Raising Sturdy Children 10. Education: The Way It Should Be 11. Apprenticeship: An Old New Idea 12. Technology: Taming the Beast 13. Hacking: Creative Bypasses 14. Entrepreneurs: Starting Stuff 15. Patience: Slow Down and Listen 16. Limits: Less Choice, More Joy 17. Rituals: A Natural Detox 18. Retirement: Aging in Place 19. Forgiveness: Pathway to Healing 20. Suffering: A Higher Plan 21. Nonresistance: No Pushback 22. Death: A Good Farewell"
By:
Donald B. Kraybill (Distinguished Professor and Senior Fellow Elizabethtown College)
Imprint: Johns Hopkins University Press
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions:
Height: 178mm,
Width: 127mm,
Spine: 14mm
Weight: 272g
ISBN: 9781421442174
ISBN 10: 1421442175
Pages: 200
Publication Date: 26 October 2021
Recommended Age: From 18 years
Audience:
General/trade
,
ELT Advanced
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active
Preface: When Old Is New Again Acknowledgments Essays Chapter 1. Riddles: Negotiating with Modernity Chapter 2. Villages: Webs of Well-Being Chapter 3. Community: Taming the Big I Chapter 4. Smallness: Bigness Ruins Everything Chapter 5. Tolerance: A Light on a Hill Chapter 6. Spirituality: A Back Road to Heaven Chapter 7. Family: A Deep and Durable Bond Chapter 8. Children: At Worship, Work, and Play Chapter 9. Parenting: Raising Sturdy Children Chapter 10. Education: The Way It Should Be Chapter 11. Apprenticeship: An Old New Idea Chapter 12. Technology: Taming the Beast Chapter 13. Hacking: Creative Bypasses Chapter 14. Entrepreneurs: Starting Stuff Chapter 15. Patience: Slow Down and Listen Chapter 16. Limits: Less Choice, More Joy Chapter 17. Rituals: A Natural Detox Chapter 18. Retirement: Aging in Place Chapter 19. Forgiveness: Pathway to Healing Chapter 20. Suffering: A Higher Plan Chapter 21. Nonresistance: No Pushback Chapter 22. Death: A Good Farewell Epilogue: Negotiation Never Ends Notes For Further Reading Index Author
Donald B. Kraybill is distinguished professor and senior fellow emeritus in the Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies at Elizabethtown College. He is the coauthor of The Amish and the author of Renegade Amish: Beard Cutting, Hate Crimes, and the Trial of the Bergholz Barbers.
Reviews for What the Amish Teach Us: Plain Living in a Busy World
For those who know little about the Amish, this gentle but highly intelligent view is all that is needed to get a firm grasp. And for those who know much about these special people, including the Amish themselves, Kraybill has composed a paean to their best qualities that belongs even on the plainest of bookshelves. —Barbara Bamberger Scott, The Book Reporter Network
