A central question in early sociology, perhaps the central question, concerned how communities would persist in the face of rapid social, economic, and political changes.Though the question is old, its answers are continually evolving as old and new forces of change interact with contemporary communities. Persistence and Change in Rural Communities makes an important contribution to our continued understanding of these processes, as it examines how a well-studied set of rural communities fare in the face of pressures that might undermine their cohesion.