 He died in 2001 at the age of 82.Dismayed by inaccurate popular essays on the Amish, Hostetler published "Amish Life" (Herald Press, 1952) and "The Amish" (Herald Press, 1995), books still in print at his death, whose combined sales approached 850,000 copies at that time.He received his Ph.D. degree from Pennsylvania State University in 1953 for his dissertation "The Sociology of Mennonite Evangelism," which was later published by Herald Press.