"If information highways are the wave of the future then I will build information country roads on which the traveller can reach the truth faster by going slower. . . ."

On these same country roads, far from the intrusions of modern technology, the Amish, Quakers, and other "plain folk" live their unencumbered lives, close to the land, in peaceful, smoothly-run communities. The thought-provoking, often challenging essays in The Plain Reader are written by men and women who rarely speak outside the borders of their local townships, and provide us with unique perspectives on life stripped...