Calvin Redekop and his co-authors argue that Mennonite successes in the business world are the result of skillful adaptation of the sect's "communal ethic."

Calvin W. Redekop is a professor of sociology emeritus at Conrad Grebel College, University of Waterloo, Ontario. His many books include The Old Colony Mennonites, Mennonite Society, Anabaptist-Mennonite Faith and Economics, and Mennonite Entrepreneurs, the last available from Johns Hopkins.

Calvin Redekop's profile page

Stephen C. Ainlay is the former president of Union College.

Stephen C. Ainlay's profile page

Robert Siemens' profile page

"An impressively wide-ranging exploration of religious commitment and entrepreneurial activity of potential interest to nearly anyone whose preoccupations touch on religion and economics... Of greater interest to sociologists will be the ways in which the discussion illuminates the process of an historically sectarian religious group struggling to find an appropriate balance between separation/resistance and cultural assimilation. Mennonite Entrepreneurs is a well-written and fascinating book and is a fine addition to Johns Hopkins's excellent collection in Anabaptist studies."

"Books about these smallish religious groups are also about large human themes such as how traditionalism intersects with modernity, the ancient tension between individualism and communalism, clashes of deeply held cultures and values, and how religious ideology may impact the secular... Instructive and intriguing."

"Mennonite Entrepreneurs is perhaps the most important current book about the contemporary North American Mennonite situation. The primary topic deals with Mennonites who are creative business leaders. The authors also trace 'the ways in which Anabaptist Mennonites have interpreted the role of economics in their society.' No other work has addressed these issues so comprehensively or analytically. The authors also deal with the churchly context of entrepreneurship. This work includes some of the most courageous commentary on the state of Mennonite society at the end of the twentieth century."