D.M. Bennett, the Truth Seeker Hardcover - 2006

Media reviews

"Roderick Bradford reintroduces a significant nineteenth-century reformer whom mainstream historians have unfairly neglected. D. M. Bennett was the most influential publisher during America's Golden Age of freethought. Even more important, through his dogged opposition to morals campaigner Anthony Comstock - and the high price he eventually paid for it - Bennett mounted a heroic defense of freedom of expression, in the process helping to shape twentieth-century free speech standards in ways that few appreciate today. Displaying a masterful command of the historical material, Bradford deftly rescues the memory of D. M. Bennett, truly an American none of us should forget."
Tom Flynn, Editor, Free Inquiry Magazine
Author of The Trouble with Christmas

"Rod Bradford's D. M. Bennett, The Truth Seeker is the first complete biography of freethought publisher and social activist D. M. Bennett. This highly researched account is an important contribution to the history of 19th century reform that documents the career of a man who stood up to postal censor Anthony Comstock and who, like his hero Thomas Paine, believed that service to mankind is the only true religion."
Kenneth W. Burchell, Historian and Co-founder
of the Thomas Paine Institute

"Rod Bradford’s highly readable and engaging book reveals a man who is strikingly relevant to our times—politically, socially, and intellectually—for today we face the same sort of intolerance that Bennett did in his day. Comstockery, McCarthyism, and demagoguery are not dead; they still stalk our society and government at all levels. More than ever, we need the spirit of D. M. Bennett to defend the liberty on which this country was founded and is based."
John Algeo
Professor Emeritus of English, University of Georgia

Citations

• Reference and Research Bk News, 02/01/2007, Page 17