Book Description
Published in 1903, W E. B. Du Bois's revolutionary collection of essays changed our perception of the African American experience. The text of this Norton Critical Edition is that of the first hook edition, which has been annotated. "Contexts" reprints an intriguing collection of political and biographical documents related to The Souls of Black Folk, sure to stimulate classroom discussion. In addition, the editors have included the eighteen thought-provoking photographs that accompanied Du Bois's 1901 article "The Negro As He Really Is." "Criticism" includes wide-ranging contemporary and recent assessments of The Souls of Black Folk by William James, John Spencer Bassett, John Daniels, Dickson P. Bruce, Jr., Robert Gooding-Williams, David Levering Lewis, Nellie McKay, Susan Mizruchi, Arnold Rampersad, Eric Sundquist, and Shamoon Zamir. A Chronology and Selected Bibliography are also included. About the Series--Each Norton Critical Edition includes an authoritative text, contextual and source materials, and a wide range of interpretation--from contemporary perspectives to the most current critical theory--as well as a bibliography and a chronology of the author's life and work.

ANNOTATION

First published in 1903, this extraordinary work not only recorded and explained history, it helped to alter its course. Written after Du Bois had earned his Ph.D. from Harvard and studied in Berlin, these 14 essays contain both the academic language of sociology and the rich lyrics of African spirituals, which Du Bois called "sorrow songs." New introduction by Randall Kenan. Major school adoption title.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

First published in 1903, this eloquent collection of essays exposed the magnitude of racism in our society. The book endures today as a classic document of American social and political history: a manifesto that has influenced generations with its transcendent vision for change.

FROM THE CRITICS

New York Times Book Review

The Souls of Black Folk throws much light upon the complexities of the negro problem, for it shows that the key note of at least some negro aspiration is still the abolition fo the social color line. -- New York Times review, April 1903; Books of the Century

Sacred Fire

Herein lie buried many things, which if read with patience may show the strange meaning of being black here in the dawning of the Twentieth Century.

Born in Massachusetts in 1868, William Edward Burghardt Du Bois was the foremost black intellectual of his time—and mind you, his time stretched all the way from Reconstruction to the civil rights movement of the 1960s. A man of staggering intellect and drive, he was the first black to hold a doctorate from Harvard University. Du Bois wrote three historical works, two novels, two autobiographies, and sixteen pioneering books on sociology, history, politics, and race relations. He was a founder of the NAACP, pioneering Pan-Africanist, spirited advocate for world peace, and tireless fighter for civil rights during the darkest days of Jim Crow.

Du Bois was also a prophet: At the turn of the century, he wrote in the "forethought" of this seminal collection of essays that "the problem of the Twentieth Century is the problem of the color line." That statement has resonated throughout this turbulent century and remains just as fresh today as in 1903. The Souls of Black Folk, a collection of fourteen powerfully written essays that are by turn testimony and autobiography, stands as a monumental achievement and quite possibly his most influential work. The book is both a vivid portrait of the conditions facing freshly emancipated black folk at the turn of the century and a still-relevant discussion of the dilemma of race in the United States. It was here that Du Bois introduced his influential concept of "double-consciousness": the struggle of black people trying to define themselves as both black and American.

What makes these unflinching, luminous, and troublesome essays so powerful is that each builds upon the other to try to answer questions about race that have perplexed, enraged, and divided America for over a century. Written in part to counter Booker T. Washington's prevailing strategy of accommodation, The Souls of Black Folk created a fresh way of looking at and protesting the multifaceted oppression of black people.

Library Journal