Du Bois and the wounds of the First World War

Abstract

W. E. B. Du Bois occupies a singular place in classical sociology as the most prolific African American scholar of his times. This article demonstrates the profound impact the First World War had on Du Bois’s life, intellectual work and political evolution. While viewing the roots of the war through the lens of the global color-line and Europe’s imperial exploitation of Africa, he nevertheless believed it represented a possibility for the expansion of democracy for people of African descent and African Americans in particular. In the aftermath of the war, Du Bois attempted to reckon with its historical and sociological meaning by writing a book, which he ultimately never completed. Du Bois’s failure to finish what would have been one of his most important works represented the failure of the war itself and his inability to effectively marshal the tools of social science to make sense of the conflict, personally, and intellectually. The war ultimately shaped the trajectory of Du Bois’s scholarship and political radicalism in ways unlike any other sociologist in the 20th century.