Donald B. Kraybill, a well-known expert in the ways of the mystical Amish --- the largest of the plain groups --- has brought his many insights to new life in this experience-based collection.

The Amish parted ways with their church leaders in Europe and began migrating to America in the early 18th century, bringing with them their traditional ways of life. They are widely known for riding in horse-drawn carriages, wearing old-fashioned clothing and rejecting modern technologies. But why they maintain these practices --- and even if they do --- is open to closer examination, Kraybill believes. There is much we can learn from their attitudes and aptitudes.

"For those who know little about the Amish, this gentle but highly intelligent view is all that is needed to get a firm grasp."

In WHAT THE AMISH TEACH US, Kraybill reveals that many Amish have adapted a great deal more, especially in technology, than outsiders might realize. They have managed to, in his words, “hack” computer, electrical, transportation and, surprisingly, cell phone usage in their own way and for their needs. Though their education takes place entirely within their own Amish-taught schools up to eighth grade only, Kraybill asserts that their technical and entrepreneurial skills are prodigious. Amish children become “apprentices” in family farms and businesses about as soon as they can walk.

Communities, “villages,” provide one vital key. Community means taking care of one another in any distressful situation and attending church services that emphasize what is known as Gelassenheit, the “yieldedness to whatever God sends,” as one Amish woman explained it to Kraybill. The men’s mustache-less beards, women’s modest dresses, and children’s bonnets and suspenders provide perennial signs of communal agreement. Yet well-considered compromises with modern conveniences do appear gradually, changing as technologies change and always with group approval, such as adoption of communal phone booths, arranging car rides with neighbors, and utilizing battery-powered appliances. In sum, Kraybill suggests that the ability to negotiate with change is a gift that the Amish offer, and for us to access that gift, “We need one another and our collective wisdom.”

Kraybill was raised as a Mennonite and became a professor, writer and explorer of the plain people. His previous works, AMISH GRACE: How Forgiveness Transcended Tragedy and THE AMISH WAY: Patient Faith in a Perilous World, attest to his special fascination with the Amish. He has organized his latest book wisely and well, looking at such issues as raising children to be good members of the family and community from the earliest years, the amazing educational efficacy of the one-room school, the high prevalence of sharp businesspeople with smart ideas among this apparently sequestered group, and the necessity, to which all Amish agree, for tolerance.

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.