Living Without Electricity

by Stephen Scott

How do the Amish get along without electric lights or appliances, computers, power tools, or their own phones? This book examines the Amish response to technology. Also, the role of invention among the Amish. This book tells how and why the Amish live without inventions other people take for granted: How do you light a room without electricity? How do you keep warm without centralized heating? What do you do for entertainment when you don't have TV? How do you get around without a car? How do you communicate when you don't have a phone?          

Living Without Electricity explains how the Amish cook and store food, pump water, wash clothes, and even run farms and businesses. It describes the practices of other Old Order groups in the United States, Canada, Mexico, and several South American countries.

Genres: Nonfiction, Amish, Religion

128 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1990

Reviews

[R.L. Anderson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great reading! This is the best I've read on the culture of the Amish. Since I live in an area quite close to an Amish community, I have seen them hundreds of times, but never knew till I read this book just how they get along without the technology that we take for granted. It's a fascinating study of a "foreign" culture right in our own locale, and is handy to keep on the shelf as a reference book. I can recommend it very highly.

[Michael & Photini Holverson · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book could be potentially interesting to those who have absolutely no experience with the Amish, but those nominally familiar with their lifestyle and practices will leave their read feeling indifferent to, likely, disappointed.

I find the title a bit misleading, also. Most Amish use electricity, just not powered through the grid. Power from diesel and gas engines is still electricity, showing no significant differences in its application on many Amish farms and shops, especially when used at such a large scale as they do. A more accurate title might have been “Off-Grid Amish Living.”

The most interesting and potentially useful parts of this book for me are the detailed descriptions of the different orders and living standards of the various Amish communities and where these groups are located. One could easily determine what is permitted or not in Amish cultural centers near him. As someone who works in the trades on the Michigan/Indiana border, I found this aspect of the book helpful as a reference guide.

[Ariela · Rating 3 out of 5]

The title was misleading for me but this was still a learning experience. I knew almost nothing about the Amish and I learned a lot. However, I was hoping to learn how to live totally off grid, but this book revealed to me that the Amish use diesel and other fuels often so not really off grid. Still interesting but not the value I thought I was going to get out of it.

[Patrick Pilz · Rating 1 out of 5]

Horribly written, just a listing of factual statements.

[David Nusinow · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was disappointing. The good part is that it did include some good information about how the Amish live, as well as good pictures. The book is broken up in to particular questions ("How do you wash your clothes without an electric washing machine? How do you do woodworking without electric tools?") which made it easy to follow or skip around to what you wanted to know about. The downside is that a lot of the answers boiled down to the Amish taking machines and converting them to use other forms of power than electricity. At this point the author tended to just list the brands of machines that were commonly used and then droned on about which companies made the machines. This led to what was overall a disappointingly boring book much of the time.

[Andrea · Rating 3 out of 5]

Short, simple and rather fascinating look at Amish life...definitely not a diy book, and living without electricity is a bit of a misnomer really, it's living off the grid and alongside electricity really, and using a lot of kerosene and diesel to do it.

[Margo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good brief overview of how the Amish live and why they live that way.

[Trudy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting book but I would have prefered to learn more about the daily life of the Amish as they live without electricity than the history of devices (i.e. plows, ice boxes).

[Karri · Rating 2 out of 5]

this book was more lists of items used than a book on living without electricity. the most informative bit of trivia is pg 115 on the use of mules. It's 3 paragraphs long.... just saying