| Book Review | The Western Historical Quarterly, 33.3

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| Book Review | The Western Historical Quarterly, 33.3 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

The Amish on the Iowa Prairie, 1840 to 1910. By Steven D. Reschly. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000. x + 268 pp. Illustrations, maps, charts, tables, appendix, notes, indexes. $42.50.)

Studying the Amish has become something of a cottage industry in the last two decades. Scholars, however, have kept their focus on the oldest and largest Amish settlement: Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. There are good reasons for this, of course. Lancaster remains the apotheosis of Amish culture and society for most interested observers; the Lancaster Amish have long accommodated themselves in various helpful ways to inquiries by "outsiders," including scholars. While the Lancaster Amish and other churches and settlements descending from or allied with them constitute a major axis of Amish life and faith in North America, a Lancaster-centered view obscures important divisions within and among the Amish. John Hochstetler's pioneering sociological studies recognized variations among Amish groups while promulgating a coherent, if occasionally prescriptive, worldview. Only recently have scholars such as Royden Loewen and Jeff Gundy attempted to look beyond the Lancaster paradigm at how Amish and Mennonite communities evolved elsewhere. Reschly's book is an important contribution to this new literature, along the now-predictable lines of "social history." It is exquisitely researched, thoughtfully considered, and competently presented, if (alas) lessthan-engagingly written. . . .

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