Hi Joseph

I have now located the quotation which so exercised you, in the middle of Chapter Eight. Miller points out that there was a change in attitudes. As you may know, and as the quotations I have given from the first ever edition of the American Journal of Folklore demonstrate, early workers, including the famous Child (and one of his disciples was involved at the start of the AJG) saw 'folk' as a degenerate version of something much older and better. Part of Miller's argument is that later on, this degenerate view was replaced by a view that 'folk' was something communally created, a bottom-up view rather than a top-down one.

The quotation comes in the middle of this interesting, well-researched and thoughtful chapter, and, as I re-read it, I feel even more certain that in taking it out of context you are unfair to Miller and misrepresent his argument.

In a sense, perhaps Miller's argument might be, albeit grossly simplified, that one sort of 'racicialised' thinking replaced another at the time of the shift in approach which he describes.

The best thing for people to do is to read the book. It is well worth the effort.