Diaspora in the Countryside: Two Mennonite Communities And Mid-twentieth Century Rural Disjuncture

Loewen, Royden

ISBN 10: 080209418X / ISBN 13: 9780802094186

Published by University of Toronto Press, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, 2006

About this Item

331 pp. with B/W illustrations. Slight edgewear and rubbing. "This book addresses a simple question: how did the rual transformation of the mid-twentieth-century affect farm famlies in general, and conservative, ethnic, and religious communities in particular? By beginning the study with a single Mennonite denomination located at two sites [Meade, Kansas and Steinbach, Manitoba] in the North American grassland and in two countries this book attempts to interpret the complex, disparate, and disjunctured transnational worlds of the twentieth century. Perhaps rural society became fragmented, but by following those scattered fragments along their various paths, one also begins to understand the resilience and ingenuity of humans as they recrafted and regrounded their worlds.".

Seller Inventory # 001931

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Diaspora in the Countryside: Two Mennonite Communities And Mid-twentieth Century Rural Disjuncture
• Publisher: University of Toronto Press, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
• Publication Date: 2006
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 080209418X
• ISBN 13: 9780802094186
• Binding: Soft cover
• Condition: Very Good
• Dust Jacket Condition: No Jacket
• Seller catalogs:
  • Mennonite

About this title

Synopsis

From the 1930s to the 1980s, the North American countryside faced a profound cultural transformation in which a once-unified rural society became fragmented and dispersed. Families wishing to remain on the farm were required to accept new levels of automation, while others, unwilling or unable to make the change, migrated to nearby towns or regional cities. The cultural reformulation that resulted saw the emergence of a genuine rural diaspora. The growing cultural and physical separation was especially true for close-knit, ethno-religious communities, Mennonites, in particular. Forced into regional cities, the kaleidoscopic urban culture further fragmented the Mennonites into disparate social entities.

In Diaspora in the Countryside, the phenomena of rural fragmentation is examined by comparing and contrasting two closely-related but distinctive Dutch-Russian Mennonite communities located in different parts of the continent: Kansas and Manitoba, respectively. By systematically comparing these communities, two distinctive responses to the mid-twentieth century 'Great Disjuncture' are made apparent. Royden Loewen also contrasts the cultural changes of these farm families to the cultures their kin adopted in nearby towns and cities. Loewen charts not only the dispersion of two rural communities, but follows their former residents as they reformulate their lives in new settings.

About the Author

Royden Loewen is the Chair in Mennonite Studies and  a professor in the Department of History at the University of Winnipeg. He is an award-winning author of a number of books on Mennonites and immigrants in North America.