In this first-of-its-kind study of the Wenger Mennonites, Kraybill and Hurd -- a sociologist and an anthropologist -- use cultural analysis to interpret the Wengers in both Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. They systematically compare the Wengers with other Mennonite groups as well as with the Amish, showing how relationships with these other groups have had a powerful impact on shaping the identity of the Wenger Mennonites in the Anabaptist world. As Kraybill and Hurd show, the Wengers have learned that it is impossible to maintain a truly static culture, and so examining the ways in which the Wengers cautiously and incrementally adapt to the ever-changing world around them is an invaluable case study of the gradual evolution of religious ritual in the face of modernity.

Donald B. Kraybill is Distinguished Professor and Senior Fellow at Elizabethtown College's Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies. He is a nationally recognized scholar on Anabaptist groups and has written or edited more than eighteen books, including The Riddle of Amish Culture (1989; rev. ed. 2001) and Amish Enterprise: From Plows to Profits (1995; rev. ed. 2004).