First published in 1920, this groundbreaking work by the pioneering African American scholar W. E. B. Du Bois is not only original and probing in its brilliant ideas but also experimental in presentation, ranging from detailed sociopolitical analyses to lyrical and poetic presentations. After an opening autobiographical essay, Du Bois launches a series of critical commentaries on some of the most important issues pertaining to white-black relations. Perhaps the most provocative of these, titled The Souls of White Folk, presents the first major analysis in Western intellectual history of white identity and the meaning of whiteness. In a trenchant assessment he explores the arrogance of the white perspective that tries to make children believe that every great soul the world ever saw was a white man's soul. Many of his criticisms, in this essay and in others, of a world social and economic system that marginalizes people of color still resonate today, especially in debates over globalization. Another still very relevant issue addressed in this book was the fate of Africa after colonialism. Du Bois was also farsighted in his advocacy of women's rights, in his emphasis on the critical importance of childhood education for all races, and in his critiques of an unjust economic system that concentrates power and wealth in the hands of a few. Complete with an insightful introduction by University of Florida Graduate Research Professor of Sociology Joe Feagin, this new edition of a classic work in Black Studies will make available to a wide audience the influential ideas of a leading African American scholar and advocate of reform.
About the Author: Educator and author W. E. B. Du Bois was born on February 23, 1868, in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. An 1891 graduate of Harvard University, he taught at the University of Pennsylvania and at Atlanta University. In 1905 Du Bois became a founder of the Niagara movement, calling for full civil, political, and social rights for Black Americans. In 1909 he helped found the NAACP. A member of the Socialist Party from 1910 to 1912, Du Bois was also active in the peace movement. He joined the American Com-munist Party in 1961, convinced that it would provide the United States with a viable third party. That same year he took up resi-dence in Ghana, Africa, becoming a citizen of that country in 1963. Du Bois died in Ghana on August 27, 1963. Du Bois pub-lished over one hundred articles and essays, and authored twenty--one books, including two novels: The Quest of the Silver Fleece (1911) and Dark Princess: A Romance (1928); a book of essays and poetry: Darkwater: Voices from Within the Veil (1920); and histories of Black people: The Negro (1915), The Gift of Black Folk: Negroes in the Making of America (1924), Black Reconstruction in America, 1860-1880 (1935), and Black Folk, Then and Now (1939).