Bradford Books

I've been trying to read every Dennett book since 1996 when I got to read the "elbow room" that really impressed my way of thinking, specially being a psychologist. I usually don't shift books on an author till I got to finish the one I'm into and its been almost two years trying to finish this book to start reading "breaking the spell" that's getting covered in dust.

This book unlikely the most recent Dennett books its a pretty deep investigation and defense into one of the most important ideas of the author as it is the intentional system, but in a rigorous way, so rigorous that some times it gets tedious so I have to let it go for a few days before continue the struggling to keep going through the pages.

I recommend this book only for those who want to know how Dennett got to the "Consciousness Explained" in a step by step and detailed way, but you can get to "Consciousness Explained" and understand it in a "mild" language skipping this sound step if you want to.

I will continue my pain since I decided to read all his books, but like I said before you can enjoy all his other great books skipping this one, but if you do, arm yourself with lots of patience cause you will see as the chapter you'r reading never comes to an end.

Good luck

I am a cognitive science doctoral student. I read this book with a basic background in Philosophy of Mind but without having read all of the main articles in the field.

First, the title... "The intentional stance." The uninitiated will not know that this refers to a subfield of the philosophy of mind called "intentionality." Does Dennett bother giving an overview of the field for those who are unfamiliar with it? No. He makes cute references to the main scholars in this field all over the place, and their main articles and results, etc., leaving all the readers who are not already familiar with his work in the dark. To a reader like me, this book is basically a conversation between Dennett and his friends. It's kind of hilarious to read actually.

Second, the book is completely unstructured. His second chapter presents his theory (again only understandable to those who have closely followed the intentionality debate before reading it), and beyond that, it's "All of Dennett's Thoughts in No Particular Order with No Conclusion."

So basically, this is academic literature at its worst. Only to be read by those who are obligated to because they are scholars in the field. I would have given it a 3 but I took a point off for nauseating arrogance and another point off for an equally arrogant lack of structure ("I am so important that they will read my book and SEARCH for the main points, because they have to!"). I guess there are a few new ideas in it, but Dennett's high falutin', extremely arrogant prose seems to be designed for his own pleasure and for the pleasure of his old boy's club of philosopher friends.

Personally I keep it next to my bed and read it before going to sleep. It's better than sleeping pills. Definitely recommended for the insomniacs.

My real recommendation is to take a serious course in intentionality before reading this book.

Ps - those who have read "Consciousness Explained" will find this book much worse. Consciousness Explained was equally arrogant (nice title) but at least readable by someone who is not already an expert in the field.

I believe this work should be considered a classic given the enormous influence the articles in it have had on philosophy of mind, among other areas in philosophy. Much in here is stated more clearly about the Intentional Stance than it is in later works, such as Brain Children. That isn't a criticism. I think that around the time this work was published Dennett was more into legitimizing and explaining the Intentional Stance than into polishing up his account of mind. Indeed in later works, such as "Consciousness Explained" and "Kinds of Minds", he builds off the foundation he laid here to develop his account of mind more fully.

In IS, Dennett comments on just which philosophical schools he aligns himself with, for instance, interpretivism, methodological behaviorism, and functionalism. Part of the message to take home about exactly where he aligns himself is that it isn't really important to him. He lays his arguments down and lets others worry about whether that makes him an interpretivist or methodological behaviorist. A clearer statement of his position regarding categorization of his views can be found in the "Back to the Drawing Board" chapter in "Dennett and His Critics".

In later works, Dennett further clarifies in what sense the entities the Intentional Stance makes use of are real, entities such as beliefs and desires. The most important of these later works is probably "Real Patterns", which appears in "Brain Children". In short, beliefs are part of compression algorithms of behavior that has been subjected to radical interpretation (See Davidson) from the Intentional Stance. A compression algorithm is (you guessed it) something that compresses some series of data. For instance, imagine you wanted to print 1000 1's and you had a computer that understood a programming language that would allow you to do so. One way to output the 1000 1's would be to specify that the computer print 1 and to repeat this command a thousand times. This doesn't compress anything however. Instead, you might tell the computer to "print 1 x 1000". This program has far fewer bits than does 1000 1's. 1000 1's has 1000 bits; the program has around log (base 2) 1000 bits. Hence, because it has fewer bits than what itd output does, that program is a compression algorithm of what it outputs. I recommend reading Gregory Chaitin for further info on Algorithmic Information Theory. In "Real Patterns" (in Brain Children), Dennett makes nice use of the mathematical definition of randomness to define compression algorithms and to set a plausible standard for what makes something a useful abstract object and thus, in a sense, just as real as are all the other useful scientific objects. Much more can be said about this, but this is enough for now.

This book is an excellent starting point for future study. Dennett's writing is as always engaging, insightful, and fairly straightforward.

Anybody who wants to seriously wrestle with Dennett's thought on consciousness needs to start here, then move to "Consciousness Explained," and from there to "Freedom Evolves." (It is an update of "Elbow Room," which means that can be skipped. And, although it has some germs of Dennett's thought, "Brainstorms" can also be bypassed.)

Does one have to have a philosophy course touching on intentionality before reading this book? No, not if one is well-enough read in philosophy, psychology or sociology in general to grasp the background of Dennett's ideas.

I rate this a star higher than most of Dennett's later work primarily because it is more introductory, and so we see less of Dennett tripping himself up or avoiding some of the logical conclusions of his speculations.

That said, Dennett is never dull or boring; agree or disagree, he will stimulate your thought.

~It's kinda nonsense to call a thought nonsense without any argument against it. It is in fact a totally sensible position (actually many great philosophers hold it) to consider meaning as quantifiable.

This book is a classic of both epistemology and philosophy of mind. I don't agree with Dretske that our cognition is only concerned with digitalization, so that perception is mainly out of conceptualization. But the application of digital/analog distiction is really helpful to understand our~~ cognition in terms of information flowing. As one reader said, I really like this part of the book.

Also, his contribution to the definition of knowledge should not be neglected. There are a few philosophers who think of knowledge in terms of information, rather than in terms of justification. Although few people are interested with knowledge now, this line of thought is very intuitive and elegant.

It's been more than 20 years, since this book was published. But still, many parts of this~~ book help to understand more contemporary discussions of epistemology and philosophy of mind.~

I was required to read this book in grad school (I was embarrassed for the teacher, since the selection reflects on the selector). It is a genuinely awful book. The style was (for me, at least) indigestible. The main thesis of the book, that *meaning* -- as opposed to bit configurations -- can be *quantified* is not just nonsense, but *frightening* nonsense, since quantifying everything gets funded these days. The book is worth buying if you want to discover how appalling what Joseph Weizenbaum described in his fine book: "Computer Power and Human Reason: From Judgment to calculation" can get!

This book is a classic, well worth reading for those with any kind of interest in contemporary epistemology or the philosophy of mind. Dretske develops an ingenious and elegant theory of informational content, and then puts it to work giving information-theoretic analyses of knowledge, perception, beliefs and concepts. Not surprisingly, since he's tackling hard problems, there are difficulties with these, and Dretske himself has changed his position quite a bit since 1981. But in each case his attack on the problem at hand is of at least as much interest as where he ends up. Dretske begins his account of perception, for instance, by reworking the analogue/digital distinction, using the modified version to give a clear and plausible account of the distinction between perceptual and cognitive processes. Whatever the fate of his theory of perception itself, this a good idea, and has been deservedly influential. The book is filled with good ideas of this kind.

Finally, a comment on the preceding review. The claim that meaning can be quantified is neither the main nor any other thesis of Dretske's book, and foisting it on him is wildly unfair. Drestke clearly and often distinguishes between the meaning of a sign and the information it carries. Moreover, his account of informational content certainly isn't just communication theory in disguise, as he hammers home time and again. As if this wasn't enough, early in chapter 2 Dretske explicitly rejects as absurd the claim that the amount of meaning in a message can be measured. Since warning lights of these kinds appear in the preface and regularly in every chapter thereafter, the preceding reviewer must indeed have found Dretske's (perfectly lucid) prose indigestible. There's every sign that he just hasn't bothered to digest it.

Information theory is highly relevant to issues in philosophy of language such as the nature of meaning; perhaps it is relevant to issues involving concept formation as well. This is a good book insofar as it recognizes this fact, which is seldom recognized. The result is thought-provoking and informative on the whole, though the author doesn't go far enough in reducing meaning to information and then in the latter part of the book he reveals some specious impetus for the project. The first is a mistake that is commonly made. Assertions partition sample spaces (indeed, they just *are* partitions of sample spaces), and their meaning as such is wholly constituted by this information-theoretic account. It would be a mistake to say that the entropy of the partition captures the whole of the information given by the partition, yes, but this doesn't imply that meaning has a non-information-theoretic character. It simply means you can't use a single number (the entropy) to express it. The second issue involves several misapplications of the very information theoretic principles Dretske espouses incorporation of in early chapters. To cite but one example (there are alas many as egregious here), Dretske asks us to accept that Tommy's assertion that this is a cup of "water" (Tommy was raised on Twin Earth) carries different information than yours or mine would, because on Twin Earth water can be XYZ. "...Earthlings acquired a different concept because their discriminatory responses were shaped by a different piece of information--the information, namely, that this was H2O." This is just wrong, as even an externalist about concepts can see immediately--the whole point of Putnam's thought experiment is that the information that it's H2O is just what's *not* playing any role here. It's not there in Tommy's assertion about the cup before him because it isn't even there in the visual and tactile experience under which Tommy forms his orginal concept of "water"; H2O and XYZ are indistinguishable under non-laboratory conditions. If you want to buy into the externalist picture, you have to do it in the face of information-theoretic arguments to the contrary--Dretske tries unsuccessfully to marshal information-theoretic arguments in support of a cause to which they are fundamentally inimical.

Although it's not completely related, one really should check out Fodor's "Psychosemantics" on Putnam/Burge.

While this book has some outdated statistics and methods -- which the publisher freely admits in the intro (original was published in the 70's after all) -- it does still give you some good general information and a pretty good idea what life on the farm is going to be like. Even gives some tips on side-income (like raising worms under your rabbit hutches).

However, the exploitative/utlitarian perspective from the 70's may offend some of today's modern homesteaders who are more concerned with eco-responsibility and full-cycle sustainability. Also, some of the methods advocated in this book are just the sort of methods that new homesteaders are trying to correct to improve their eco-footprints. If you're able to step back from the details and look at the rhythm of farm life he illustrates, the information he provides is still relevant today.

I was somewhat disappointed that there was no mention of distilling your homemade wines into vinegars, or how to make mead (considering he spent oodles of time discussing the wonders of bees!). Very little was mentioned about preserving summer's bounty from your garden... although he did spend a great deal of time explaining everything you might ever want to know about herb gardens. Very little about trees and other fruits in here at all (except a smattering of wild berries). Not much info on "free-ranging" anything either... but then again, that concept wasn't really around when he wrote the book.

"Back to earth" homesteaders won't find this suitable if they have any empathy whatsoever with innocent creatures. Who in their right mind would abandon technology, chemicalization & mechanization of society, and then raise rabbits for horrific experimental usage in laboratories? This book is guide for societal outcasts, perhaps those who once raised pitbulls for dogfights, were caught & now must find yet another source of income beyond moonshining.

While this book was very thorough and had a lot of good info, there was a lot of emphasis on keeping animals for food or slaughter. This is fine for some folks, it just wasn't something that I was interested in. There was also mention of keeping rabbits and guinea pigs to sell to laboratories, which probably isn't something a lot of today's earth loving folk would be interested in. The book does have some good information about getting started gardening, as well as how to get started keeping a variety of animals along with bees, fish, frogs, and earthworms. All in all though, I think it is sort of more of a book to give you general ideas than anything else. If you wanted to really get into gardening or bee keeping, etc., I would opt to get a book specifically about such a topic. If you just want some ideas about what you might do and/or how to get started, then this book would be a good match for you.

Bradford Angier's One Acre & Security provides a classic on how to live in the country and off the land without ruining it.It first appeared in 1972 and was one of the forerunners of the back-to-earth movement: here it returns to offer new audiences discussions on organic gardening, how to build a house and keep animals, and how to live in the country.

This book is a very poor example of scholarship. Bradford attempts to impose his hackneyed ideological theory on the men of the revolutionary and founding generation. He attacks such brilliant scholars as Bernard Bailyn for having the audacity to base his work on reality. In the place of past interpretations, Bradford invents an almost laughable concept of "Old Whig" thought, which in all truthfulness seems to have been made up out of thin air. I could go on and on about the horrible failings of this work, but that is not necessary. Instead, I will only point the potential reader of this work to true works of ideological scholarship, those of Bailyn, Gordon Wood, Caroline Robbins, H. Trevour Colbourn, Pauline Maier et al. While these works are not perfect, they are far superior to Bradford's brand of puerile revisionism.

Bradford feels that the leading men of the revolutionary period such as the under appreciated John Dickinson and Patrick Henry knew experience and the inherited common law were a better guide to lead them than reason or abstract philosophy. The Revolution was not a revolution but one avoided and not to be compared to the radical French one. The inherent rights of self-preservation and self govermnent are what motivated the colonists, not some abstract liberty or Natural Law. They looked towards the "rights of Englishmen", constitutional order, and common law passed down through the ages; they made a revolution "not to create but to protect", protect what had always been theirs as free British subjects. The Declaration of Independence is not some radical document if it is properly taken in the context of 18th century America and how they saw what they were doing. The so called "revolution" was indeed the proper response to tyranny and the duty and obligation as English Colonial subjects- their given right. The Colonials wanted to preserve for themselves and posterity self-government and ordered liberty. The Declaration is not an egalitarian, democratic document that later Americans, Lincoln included, would try to make it out to be. The founders did not want to destroy society and make it new, they wanted continuity.
I agree with Bradford's nomocratic(as opposed to teleocratic) view of the Constitution in "Original Intentions" and the way he views Lincoln's use or rather misuse of the Declaration (by giving that document authority over the Constitution). One area that I do not agree with Bradford however, is in his overall tone and harshness regarding Lincoln. Although making well reasoned arguments, he gives an impression of Lincoln being "lawless" which I think is unwarranted. Back on topic- this is an excellent little book.

The previous review was written by a sorry excuse for a reviewer

Ready to move beyond the mundane, dead, western world view of deus ex machina? Continuing along your spiritual pursuits? Either place or any other that you may be at, this book will knock your socks off and get you dancing! Layers of background information interwoven with eyewitness and "bodywitnessing" experience. What a profound group of people the Bushman shaman are and what a blessing to take a peek into their world!

I bought this book immediately after seeing him speak at an ACA conference and got it signed at the same time. He is charismatic and engaging. Reading the book though, he started to come across as self-important and bragging how shamans that never would talk to other white people were quick to embrace and teach him. Still, his expeiences seem real in his descriptions in this book and I wanted to delve deeper into the subject to perhaps personally explore it myself. I googled Bradford Keeney and found his site. Besides seeming a little too new-agey for my taste, it brings to light the cottage industry of Keeney. Whereas the people that he studied under did not charge him, he will sell you a 12 cd "home study course" for $250. I have no problem with peoples' rights to earn a living but $250 strikes me as an expensive price. He makes his points about how he has been called upon to share shamanism with the west. I feel that the book misled me about the nature of his selflesness after coming across his website.

Join Brad Keeney as he shakes his way around the world for one of the most exiting spiritual journeys ever recorded.

Brad's adventure takes us from the Bushman of Africa to the Shakers of Saint Vincent and Healers of Japan.

Also, one gets a very intimate glimpse of how the Bushman of Africa live, some of their past history and what they may face in the future.

Being one of the most fascinating books on God, religion and the Human Energy Field I have ever read, I would highly recommend adding it to your library.

This book offers real hope with real substance for those in a difficult situation. If we didn't live in such a hyper-sensitive anti-Christian culture, one wouldn't have even imagined the previous reviewer could have called ideas in the book 'fundamentalist.' I feel for the people at that hospital who are being denied some real help due to a librarian's bias and discrimination. Read the book yourself, rather than letting someone else decide for you.

No one is prepared when the doctor looks at you after examining your child and his/her demeanor gives away the news: your child is seriously ill. Everything changes. What was a normal day becomes a vacuum that keeps you and your family prisoner while the rest of the world continues to move, breathe and enjoy life.

You feel you're suffocating as well meaning people throw words like "I know how you feel" at you when they can't possibly know how you feel. You vacillate between wanting to scream or disappear, finding that it's a dream and your family is intact. But it isn't a dream, and it won't go away. And though you shout "THIS ISN'T FAIR," and it isn't, nothing changes.

As two mothers who are also nurses, the authors readily admit their medical backgrounds are not necessarily an asset when your child is the subject of chronic illness. They take you through the experiences shared by any parent who finds that in a few seconds, their future and that of their child has been forever altered by the ravages of the disease.

There are implications for the family, and especially those for the caregivers and the siblings. Hoekstra and Bradford draw upon their strong Christian faith to answer in part the questions "Why?" and "Why me?" Their practical advice coupled with their spiritual insights make this a MUST READ for the parents of chronically ill children.

As a grandparent of a child born with severe heart problems, the book was a wonderful find. It's been given away nearly a dozen times -- to parents of a child with a fast growing tumor; to parents sitting in the neonatal unit of a children's hospital; to a pastor who often finds himself counseling heartbroken parents who need answers.

The final result will depend on the outcome of each story, but for this reader, the encouragement given by these mothers provided a way to endure the days of shock, frustration and discouragement. The sun is bring again, not because the circumstances have changed, but because the perspective has sharpened, thanks to Bradford and Hoekstra.

We purchased this book for our hospital patient health resource center, and decided after reviewing it that it wasn't suitable. While I have no objection to presenting points of view of many different faiths, this book takes a strong fundamentalist view towards parenting. Much of the narrative and Biblical quotations are needlessly shaming to parents who are already struggling with the strain of a chronically ill child. The casual browser who reads the jacket blurb on this book will see only that the authors incorporate prayer in their coping suggestions, a perfectly acceptable option. This book is not appropriate for an unsuspecting parent seeking solace and support.

I have not quite finished the book yet(as I have only had it for a few days), however, I am intrigued! In opposition to the other review from France, it seems as though Dr. Hobson knows a great deal on the subject. Besides, the man has been studying neuropsych. for 30 years. His knowledge obviously reflects his hard work and observation. Furthermore, "organization" is spelled with a "z," not an "s."

Hobson does not understand the topic he is studying. Dream is not at all a "delirium" but a very complex organisation of consciousness.

It's me again...I've finished the book and am doubly pleased! This book provided me with much insight into the distinction between the concious and the unconcious states we live in each day. The book is also very informative if you are wondering how our own brain chemicals and outside chemicals react and have effect on each other. Being that I am a doctor in training and am contemplating the continuation of my education in neuroscience, I have found this book to be quite well worth reading...and the fact that I have just begun to learn about medicine, and am not familiar with all terminology and explaination, makes this book great for even the general public/anyone simply interested in the subject. I give it all five stars!

The late E. Bradford Burns was one of the most versatile historians of Latin America, and this book contains the fruits of his 30+ years of research and teaching. All textbook surveys require choices of content and emphasis, but here Burns's have resulted in a superior volume. His is an interpretive and thematic perspective, permitting an integrated approach to the entire continent. This works better than having discrete chapters on specific countries, which may or may not be the focus of a particular course or single reader. Burns stresses the importance of the region's institutions in shaping its history, and gives due attention to the 19th century, often a "forgotten century" compared with the 16th or 20th. A central organizing theme is the struggle between elites and folk communities, a continuous factor in the continent's history. As a Brazilianist, Burns gives better coverage of that major country than does any other text, without slighting Spanish America. The author's prose, while not exactly scintillating, is clear and readable, and his quietly humanistic values further heighten our interest. Drawbacks: reduced coverage of pre-19th century period; little citation of primary sources; and a perfunctory stab at incorporating work on women's history. Nevertheless, this is a superb text for any university course on Modern Latin America or Latin America Since Independence, and I found that it works very well in my own classes. Having canvassed all the major texts (which have many merits of their own), I recommend this as the finest within the inevitable limits of any one-volume work.

This book seems like it was written by an 8th grader. Disorganized, it often presents an incongruous or dislocated sentence at the end of a paragraph leaves me wondering "what?" Inconsistent and often juvenile. He skips around and uses words that are not defined, unless maybe you are already a Latin American history buff. I am taking this for a college course and wish I wasn't taking the course just because of this text!

Used this book as textbook in advanced (IB) History of the Americas; very authoritative and complete, must say one of the clearest books I've seen on this subject; a definitive narrative of Latin American history.

Herein lies some good basic information about many ways to find and get gold. Too bad it doesn't come with something to do the hard work for you!

If you want some interesting history of gold discovery and the way things used to be done, this is the book for you.As for myself, I was looking for modern methods ( I didn't check the publication date of 1982) but did find the history lesson interesting. Not much mention in this book about electronic gold prospecting! Some of the camping suggestions are a bit old but with a little modern adaptation they still work.Overall an easy, interesting read.

Too many times over the years I've encountered treasure hunters who didn't know how to pan gold, didn't know how to evaluate a watercourse, didn't know how to recognize gold if they saw it. If you just want an excuse to go out into the wilderness for a few days of fun and solitude, or if you plan to search for the Dutchman or the Lost Adams, this is a good book to begin your education.

I have read that Roark Bradford based these (supposedly) Black interpretations of Biblical tales on actual folklore he heard from Black storytellers in Louisiana as a child. As an African-American historian and folklorist myself, I doubt that very seriously.

I have read oral history and slave narratives of humorous black versions of Biblical lore, but they were nothing like this!

Basically, this is a crude caricature of Black folklore. Cain is depicted as mating with a female gorilla to repopulate the world. One character is called "Ni---r Demus" (a play on the biblical Nicodemus) who "God" assures the absence of Jim Crow in heaven. Salome does a strip show for a judge who greatly appreciates her pulchritude, etc. Crap shooting, razor toting, and moonshine drinking are displayed with gusto, along with the exaggerated "Negro dialect" so common in this kind of literature (bradford wrote this in 1928).

This book was the foundation of the play and film THE GREEN PASTURES, which I think did a far better job. It's interesting for historical purposes and for readers who are very old who may have enjoyed this sort of thing in bygone days. As for everyone else, hold your nose and aproach with caution.

My mom had this when I was a kid, and I read it then. That was before I knew about racial differences. I wanted to read it again, so I did. It isn't politically correct, but it shows how African Americans, slaves or recently freed, might adjust the Bible stories to fit what they knew. The same sort of thing might have happened to the Native Americans that met the California missionaries.

"Al' Man Adam an' His Chillun" is on my bookshelf since 1961 and I still love it. (Crusaders of political correctness better stop reading here...) I am amazed at Bradford's view of biblical persons, stories and, first of all, the Lord. The very Old Testament, with its gruesome stories, bloodthirsty and evil prophets and an envious, unjust, vengeful God, who repeatedly commits mass destruction to eradicate the traces of his own faults, has always frightened me. (Voltaire, Fréret, Bolingbroke felt similarly...) To my surprise, mass-media-pastors claim to deduct their loving and merciful God from the same book. But much more puzzling it seems to me that among the infinite attributes that men ascribe to God there is no mention of sense of humor or common sense. Can omniscience and omnipotence exist without them?

Bradford's Lawd is that benevolent, wise, lenient and understanding grandfather you would have liked to have in your childhood; with tremendous life-experience and blessed with a good portion sense of humor and common sense. Bradford's biblical persons (and you too) are his mischievous grandchildren; very human, erratic beings.

Bradford's cheerful explanations to the biblical happenings are more reasonable and human than those in the very Original. Read "Sin", where Noah tries to convince the Lawd that he needs "two kags of licker" because "Hit'll help balance de boat". But you will miss important points, if you don't know the related stories from the Old Testament, and, if you are reluctant to get accustomed to "dat way of tawking". This makes the reading a bit difficult at the beginning. Bradford did his best to reproduce the sounds and the grammar of the language Blacks were using around 1900 on his father's farm. He has never claimed to have made scientific transcriptions like Robert Rattray (See his Ashanti and Hausa folk tales). It would be a challenging task to find out what came from Black folklore, what was Ol' Preacher Wes' contribution whom Bradford had been listening to in his early childhood and what was Bradford's own invention.

The book is full of anachronisms. They make the stories funny and, on the other hand, reveal Bradford's social criticism. It reminds me of Swift's Gulliver. In "Baalam and His Talking Mule" Baalam is reluctant to help "de white folks" against the enemies of the Lawd: "Did I go over yonder and tell de white folks how to smite dem enemies, well, the first thing you know I'd be hangin' up on a telephome pole and hit wouldn't be de enemies which done it." In "Nigger Deemus" Lawd has to admit that he is not almighty: "So I'm jest gonter show you what I kin do... and what I can't... 'Cause efn I up and tells you I can't do nothin' ..., you liable to think I'm tryin' to Jim Crow you." In "A Preliminary Motion in Judge Pilate Court" John the Baptist is "charged with Act 1436, Section 4. Dangerous and Suspicious." There is a twist in the tail (Bill Cosby would be proud of it). Exactly, when Salome starts to undress herself, the children of the judge bust in shouting "Pappy, mamma say dinner is about ready; she say you better come on and wash yo' face and hands and git ready to eat."

I can't understand critics who call Bradford a racist, classify his stories as a "crude caricature of Black folklore" and despise his language as an "exaggerated Negro dialect". Their essence can mostly be traced back to Sterling A. Brown's "Negro Character As Seen by White Authors" in the Journal of Negro Education 2. April 1933, (179-203). He starts with quotations from the first two pages of Bradford's foreword of the first edition (1928). Unfortunately the reprints don't contain that foreword, so you can't detect that his quotations are out of context; he hasn't understood the real content; and he had no the faintest idea about the remaining 260 plus pages either. The same applies to most of Bradford's recent critics too. Consider the followings from that foreword (they might explain too, why it is missing in the reprints...):

"The nigger... has not learnt many of the finer points of our white civilization, such as intolerance, moral justification, fixed purposes, determination to win, high-pressure living, hate (in its extended sense), cold blooded business service, money as basis of all values, the effect of what people think about an individual as a governing factor of personal conduct, and so on..."[XII] "... he hasn't learned yet to survey the facts in any situation and to relate them artfully so as to deceive and then justify his action by shifting the responsibility to the other fellow for not perceiving the deception." [XIII]

"But, on the other hand, he has done three things in the past two hundred years that the white man hasn't been able to do in two thousand years. He has created for himself a language of beauty and rhythm that, perhaps, is more expressive and less verbose than any language extant. He has created him a religion that produces for him that spiritual peace and rest in this life that the religions of the white men describe and offer but fall just short of producing. And finally, he has produced a distinct racial music which, I believe, is not even claimed by any other race."[XIIIf]