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Frontmatter -- Contents -- List of Illustrations -- Preface -- Introduction -- 1. The People and Language That the Versammlinge Celebrate -- 2. Making Tradition: The Origins and Development of the Versammlinge -- 3. "Let Us Deitsche Be What We Are": The Structure of Versammling Events -- 4. Theatricality: Performing Tradition -- 5. The Message of the Versammlinge: The Reverend Clarence Rahn and the Main Speech -- 6. Region and Nation: Contexts for the Versammling Movement -- 7. The Future of Pennsylvania Germans and Their Versammlinge -- Notes -- Glossary -- Bibliography -- Index

On Sikaiana, a small isolated Polynesian atoll, there are very high rates of fosterage and many children move between several different caretakers. Fosterage is an important way to express Sikaiana values of generosity and build social relations. Sikaiana fosterage provides an example of how several different families can share responsibilities for raising children. Sikaiana fosterage also provides a comparative perspective for examining American and other Western family systems where there is a widespread preference for the exclusive rearing of children within one family.

A major theme in social theory concerns the transformation of social relationships in small communities as a result of modernization. This paper examines changing social relations in some small towns in southeastern Pennsylvania. For several hundred years, the residents of these towns have continuously developed institutions to preserve their local identity and maintain personal relations at the same time that they are incorporated into larger, regional social systems. The same local institutions and relations, however, are replicated in each small town, suggesting that local and particular interests are expressed through regional institutions. Although focused on a few small towns in one region of the United States, this paper examines the local expression of processes which are global.