Description
Book SynopsisA comparative global history of Mennonites from the ground up. Winner of the Dale W. Brown Book Award for Outstanding Scholarship in Anabaptist and Pietist Studies, Shortlisted for the Wallace K. Ferguson Prize by the Canadian Historical Association, Nominee of the Margaret McWilliams Award by the Manitoba Historical SocietyMennonite farmers can be found in dozens of countries spanning five continents. In this comparative world-scale environmental history, Royden Loewen draws on a multi-year study of seven geographically distinctive Anabaptist communities around the world, focusing on Mennonite farmers in Bolivia, Canada, Indonesia, the Netherlands, Russia, the United States, and Zimbabwe. These farmers, who include Amish, Brethren in Christ, and Siberian Baptists, till the land in starkly distinctive climates. They absorb very disparate societal lessons while being shaped by particular faith outlooks, historical memory, and the natural environment. The book reveals the ways in which
Trade ReviewAn accessible entry point for readers interested in learning about places other than their own, as well as the interplays between natural resources and human cultivation.
—Dr. Rachel Waltner Goossen, Washburn Univerity,
Anabaptist WorldTable of ContentsAcknowledgements
Introduction
1. Sect and Settler in the North: Plowing Friesland, Iowa, Manitoba, and Siberia
2. Peasant and Piety in the South: Planting Java, Matabeleland, and Bolivia's Oriente
3. Something New under the Mennonite Sun: A Century of Agricultural Change
4. Making Peace on Earth: Seven Farmers and a Faith of the Everyday
5. Women on the Land: Gender and Growing Food in Patriarchal Lands
6. Farm Subjects and State Biopower: Seven Degrees of Separation
7. Vernaculars of Climate Change: Southern Concern, Northern Complacency
8. Mennonite Farmers in "World Scale" History: Seven Encounters on Earth
Conclusion
Appendices
Notes
Bibliography
Index
