Fields of Peace: A Pennsylvania German Album

by George A. Tice (Photographer), Sue Bender (Foreword), Millen Brand (Collaborator)

Photographer George Tice and novelist and poet Millen Brand illuminate the history and lives of the Pennsylvania German sects, primarily the Amish and the Mennonites, who continue to live lives of determined simplicity and agrarian focus.

Genres: Photography

180 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1998

About the author

George A. Tice was an American photographer. His work depicts a broad range of American life, landscape, and urban environment, mostly photographed in his native New Jersey. He has lived all his life in New Jersey, except for his service in the U.S. Navy, a brief period in California, a fellowship in the United Kingdom, and summer workshops in Maine, where he taught at the Maine Photographic Workshops, now the Maine Media Workshops.

Reviews

[Mike · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is beautiful. Tice's images do not specifically address the Brand's text they appear next to but they combine into a beautiful, comprehensive whole. It helps that the Pennsylvania Dutch are a fascinating topic and people. They are determined to maintain their self-reliant culture in the rolling Pennsylvania hills. They have a deep religious faith, love of words and music, and tremendous farming skill. It truly is amazing the connection apparent in Tice's photographs as no posturing is visible in his portraits, and his landscapes in their fascinating simplicity pay homage to Pennsylvania Dutch. Above all after fleeing war in their native Germany in the 17th and 18th century, the Pennsylvania Dutch are devoted to peaceful existence.

"What the Pennsylvania German plain sects teach is simply that the human species can still want to live by a strong and abiding sense of love. Though for them this love, this brotherhood, is Biblic, one may hope it has elements of universality. With them, with whatever modifications, it seems to endure."