No publication can be of more importance to visitors to Hancock Shaker Village than this history and guide by John Harlow Ott, The trustees of Shaker Community, Inc. have long felt the need for such a publication in order to give visitors the origins of the Shaker movement and some sense of American society into which the Shaker order was planted, prospered and later lost its sustaining force. Life here at "The City of Peace," as Hancock was called, was better understood and appreciated as a result of reading this useful and comprehensive guide.