Mennonites In Canada 1786 1920

T.D. Regehr shows how the Second World War challenged the pacifist views of Mennonites and created a population more aware of events, problems, and opportunities for Christian service and personal advancement in the world beyond their traditional rural communities.

The editor provides an important new scholarly tool for locating and understanding the enormous expansion of scholarly research dealing with the sociology of Canadian Mennonites, Hutterites and Amish. Although the book includes research from American scholars, the editor devotes special attention to Canadian works concerning these important and interesting minorities. Using the tripartite division of Mennonites, Hutterites and Amish, the bibliography includes 800 entries each with a concise summary and evaluation. The entries are listed under the subheadings: books, theses, articles and unpublished manuscripts. Preceding the bibliography itself is an essay by the editor originally presented to the Canadian Sociology and Anthropology Association. The essay outlines the differing conceptual assumptions of the researchers included in the book, the major methodologies employed and the main conclusions to be drawn from their work.

"During the 1870s, 7,000 Mennonites - descendants of Dutch and German Anabaptists - arrived in Canada to settle in the newly created province of Manitoba. While in Europe, they had steadily moved eastward under pressure of persecution and governmental restrictions until they settled in "foreign colonies" in New Russia (Ukraine) in 1789. Generations of living as non-citizen settlers under special arrangements with the ruler had reinforced their separatist understanding of what it meant to live in nonconformity with the world." "Adolf Ens's volume traces the tensions of Mennonites becoming full citizens in the participatory democracy of Canada through the crucial steps of immigration, settlement and naturalization, implementing local municipal government, and becoming part of the public school system. This process was greatly complicated by the outbreak of the First World War and the intolerance it produced toward those who were pacifist, German, and different." "Almost 8,000 of the descendants of this immigrant group left for Latin America in the aftermath of the war, becoming subjects once again. The rest gradually accommodated themselves to being full Canadian citizens."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved