Fields of Peace: A Pennsylvania German Album [Hardcover]

GEORGE TICE (Photographer), Sue Bender (Foreword), Millen Brand (Collaborator)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1567920764 | ISBN-13: 978-1567920765 | Publication Date: January 1, 1998 | Edition: Revised

Fields of Peace unites two remarkable talents in masterful volume. The text, written by the late Millen Brand, illuminates the history of the Pennsylvania German sects who were united in their rejection of infant baptism. He provides a sympathetic portrait of these fascinating people (often erroneously called "Pennsylvania Dutch") who emigrated from Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries, found a home in the sympathetic commonwealth of William Penn, and settled primarily in and around Lancaster County. Primarily Amish and Mennonites, these are quiet and modest people whose lives of determined simplicity and whose passion for land seem totally anomalous in modern America. They continue to live lives of determined simplicity and agrarian focus that have all but disappeared.

The photographs by George Tice are some of the most compelling documentary imagery ever framed. In their unobtrusive vision, they capture the substance and the spirit of these self-reliant people. They also reflect over thirty years of gentle but persistent efforts to document their lives and record their customs. For George Tice, this has been a life work, and the breadth and generosity of his vision is manifest on every page.

First published in 1970 and here entirely reset with 39 new images added and every photograph reshot for duotone reproduction (as well as a new foreword by Sue Bender and a new afterword by Tice), this is not a "revised edition" but an entirely new book; one that will surely take its place among the classic documentary works of this century.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

A welcome, dramatically updated reissue of a classic photo-essay originally published in 1970, this portrait of the Amish and Mennonite Pennsylvania German communities is a treasure for lovers of photography and Americana. In a new afterword describing his 1990 return trip to the region, Tice notes that he found the simplicity-loving way of life of these self-reliant folk still largely intact. This revised edition features 39 new photographs and a duotone format that adds warmth and intimacy to the wonderfully evocative pictures, inviting one to linger over such scenes as a horse and buggy silhouetted against open sky, an auction, a prayer meeting, kids with wide-brimmed hats playing in the snow, sheep enveloped in fog and pristine farmhouses. Tice's spare, quiet, yet stunning photos capture an underlying sense of order and purpose. Novelist/screenwriter Brand, who died in 1980, was on intimate terms with the Pennsylvania Germans (often mistakenly called "Pennsylvania Dutch"). His perceptive text examines their deeply ingrained customs: independent small farming (in some areas, tobacco is the cash crop); aversion to government and secretive courtships; and evening get-togethers for singing and storytelling. Brand records uninhibited conversations with a foundry worker, a beekeeper, a horse trader, an international medical volunteer. The whole album exudes an inner radiance, managing to transcend idyllic sentimentality to become a sociological document.

Copyright 1998 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 176 pages
• Publisher: David R Godine; Revised edition (January 1, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1567920764
• ISBN-13: 978-1567920765
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 9.9 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,077,043 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This book is a classic! The photography is beautiful!, May 17, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Fields of Peace: A Pennsylvania German Album (Hardcover)

This book offers a glimpse into the world of the Amish which has basically remained unchanged. It is a world uncomplicated by todays technological advances. It is a world that I respect and admire. The photographs in this book brought me closer to the amish people and captured the beauty of the people and the land. George Tice is a master of photography.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Timelessness, simplicity, and serenity, November 19, 2010

By 

R. M. Peterson (Santa Fe, NM) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Fields of Peace: A Pennsylvania German Album (Hardcover)

My mother's family are Pennsylvania Dutch from Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. Her ancestors immigrated to William Penn's religious haven from the Palatinate (Rhine Pfalz area or the upper Rhine) some time well before the Revolutionary War. Thus, they are Germans -- "Deitsch" or "Deutsch" in their own German dialect, but "Dutch" to the English among which they settled in Pennsylvania - and hence, Pennsylvania "Dutch".

I give this background for two reasons. One is that it explains why this book, FIELDS OF PEACE: A PENNSYLVANIA GERMAN ALBUM, is special to me. The other is to help dispel the confusion between Pennsylvania "Dutch" and Pennsylvania "Germans". Another personal aside: My son had to do a genealogy project for school; his teacher knew that his grandmother was Pennsylvania Dutch; so she deducted points from my son's grade when he identified his grandmother and her parents as German. Yes, going back two to three centuries these folks are of German extraction, but even they commonly refer to themselves as Dutch.

After their German heritage, the fundamental distinguishing characteristic of the Pennsylvania Dutch is their common Anabaptist religious background. For some of them, their "Anabaptism" has led them to do without various trappings of conventional modern life (most noticeably, electricity and gasoline-powered vehicles). These idiosyncratic and anachronistic practices, along with the fact that many still make their livings off of picturesque Pennsylvania farms, have made the Pennsylvania Dutch quaint curiosities to much of the rest of the country.

Hence, there is a minor market niche for books on the Pennsylvania Dutch. Well, if a library could have only one book on the Pennsylvania Dutch, this very well might be the one to have. I don't know of a better one, even though FIELDS OF PEACE is essentially forty years old (this 1998 edition adds very little that is new to the contents of the original 1970 edition).

With the exception of the Foreword (which is almost "New Age" and overly sentimental), the text, by Millen Brand, ranges from so-so to quite good. Especially fine is his overview history of the Pennsylvania Dutch and catalog of some of the principle sects or divisions (in matters of religious doctrine, the Pennsylvania Dutch are surprisingly fractious) - Amish, Mennonites, Church of the Brethren (or Dunkards), Schwenkfelders, Moravians.

But what makes the book special are the photographs by George Tice. There are about 125 of them, all platinum/palladium, thus black-and-white with wonderfully nuanced shades of silver and gray. Barns and farmhouses, windmills, horse-drawn buggies, mule-drawn plows, water pumps, cornstalks and haystacks, covered bridges, kids on bicycles, straw hats, prayer caps, church meeting houses, one-room schoolhouses, and outhouses. Most were taken in Lancaster County. Cumulatively, they capture a simplicity and serenity that is quite unusual in these United States. In his Afterword, George Tice writes that he wanted his photographs "to be timeless, like Edward S. Curtis' monumental work on the American Indians." I may be prejudiced, but I believe Tice succeeded.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Simply beautiful, August 10, 2009

By 

pinecone - See all my reviews

This review is from: Fields of Peace: A Pennsylvania German Album (Hardcover)

I'm very fond of platinum/palladium prints. While looking for examples of platinum/palladium printing, I came upon Tice's works. Some of the images in this collection are breathtakingly beautiful. I could spend hours staring at the fields, fences and back roads as captured in these photographs.

Millen Brand's essay describes the history and traditions of the inhabitants---mostly Amish and Mennonites. The description is overwhelmingly positive, except for one instance at the end of the book where Brand writes:

"I had thoughts as I drove away. I was first grateful to Benjamin and his wife for the quiet and peace of the Sunday afternoon and for their acceptance of me in letting me, a stranger, visit. But this closer acquaintance with an Amish family gave me new thoughts I had not anticipated. I felt a lack. I felt in these men and women a touch of naivete, a limited something, even a limiting something.

These good and innocent people live in a world of possible atomic destruction. Their challenge is mainly disaffiliation and withdrawal. Such withdrawal, good or well-intentioned as it is, leads to a subtle cooperation. They pay taxes even if they refuse benefits of social insurance (God has established governments.) Battery lights are used on the backs of buggies at night (electricity required by law). I had seen them twinkling along the roads. They use roadside telephones. Admirable as the Amish alienation is, even healthful, it is also less than a complete answer in a troubled world. There is a possible emptiness to the murmuring and beautiful landscapes."