Steven M. Nolt is professor of history and Anabaptist studies and director of the Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies at Elizabethtown College. He received his Ph.D. in history from the University of Notre Dame and holds a graduate theology degree from Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary.
Nolt’s Amish-related research has taken him into dozens of settlements across the United States and in Ontario, and has focused on community formation and history, economic and social change, and the role of technology in Amish life.
He is the author or coauthor of sixteen books on Amish, Mennonite, and Pennsylvania German history and contemporary life. His titles include The Amish: A Concise Introduction (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2016) and People of Peace: A History of the Virginia Mennonite Conference (Masthof Press, 2025), with Elwood Yoder. With Donald Kraybill and Karen Johnson-Weiner, he wrote The Amish (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2013), the definitive study of Amish society and cultural diversity.
He also serves as the series editor for Young Center Books in Anabaptist and Pietist Studies, published by the Johns Hopkins University Press and as coeditor of the Journal of Plain Anabaptist Communities, published by Ohio State University Libraries.