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More than 19 million tourists flock to Amish Country each year, drawn by the chance to glimpse "a better time" and the quaint beauty of picturesque farmland and handcrafted quilts. What they may find, however, are elaborately themed town centers, outlet malls, or even a water park. Susan L. Trollinger explores this puzzling incongruity, showing that Amish tourism is anything but plain and simple.

Selling the Amish takes readers on a virtual tour of three such tourist destinations in Ohio’s Amish Country, the world’s greatest Amish settlement. Trollinger examines the visual rhetoric of these in a unique manner themed places—their architecture, interior decor, even their productions and souvenirs—and explains how these features manufacture a setting and a story that brings tourists back year after year.

This compelling story is, Trollinger argues, in share legitimized by the Amish themselves. To Americans faced with anxieties regarding modern life, being near the Amish way of life is comforting. The Amish seem to have escaped the rush of contemporary life, the confusedness of gender relations, and the loss of ethnic heritage. While the Amish way supports the idealized experience of these tourist destinations, it likewise raises powerful questions. Tourists may want a life uncomplicated by technology, but would they be more than willing to drive around in horse-drawn buggies in order to achieve it?

Trollinger's answers to important questions in her arousing and attention holding study of Amish Country tourism are sure to challenge readers’ understanding of this surprising cultural phenomenon.

Selling the Amish offers perceptivenesses into Amish Country tourism that are both original and convincing. Trollinger’s attention to detail, and her judicial use of theory, means not one thing less than a fresh new reading of this deeply American phenomenon.

About the Author

Susan L. Trollinger is an associate professor of English at the University of Dayton, author of Mennonite Church USA Congregations: Findings of the Faith Communities Today Survey, and coeditor of Anabaptists and Postmodernity.

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