What is it about the Amish that both enchants and perplexes us? Their commitment to a plain lifestyle, limited technology, and small-scale communities is evidence that they pursue a different road to happiness than the typical American. This comprehensive landmark account identifies, for the first time, forty distinctive Amish groups and explains how they negotiate with contemporary culture in areas of education, technology, healthcare, business, government, and tourism while astutely preserving their traditional values. (518pp. illus. index. Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 2013.)