In light of an American Century defined by war, the durability of racism, and the elusive quest for democracy, Williams's account of W. "Chad Williams managed to write a thoroughly gripping story of failure. Du Bois: Biography of a Race, 1868-1919, winner of the Pulitzer Prize to Chad Williams's brilliant The Wounded World." - David Levering Lewis, author of W.E.B. "Until Professor Williams's heroic accumulation of sources, his stunning mastery of them, and uncanny reckoning with his subject's ego, Du Bois's unfinished history of the Great War remained a mystery. A solid bulwark against efforts to simplify and sanitize history." - Kirkus Reviews Williams, like Du Bois before him, has done the important work of making sure that history is recorded and remembered. At once a moving character study and a deeply researched look at a dispiriting era from the country's past, this is history at its most vivid." - Publishers Weekly (starred review) Williams convincingly renders Du Bois as a tragic figure whose optimism was dashed by the intransigence of racism, adding poignancy to a story about the limits and fragility of American democracy. In uncovering what happened to Du Bois's largely forgotten book, Williams offers a captivating reminder of the importance of World War I, why it mattered to Du Bois, and why it continues to matter today.
The surprising story of this unpublished book offers new insight into Du Bois's struggles to reckon with both the history and the troubling memory of the war, along with the broader meanings of race and democracy for Black people in the twentieth century.ĭrawing on a broad range of sources, most notably Du Bois's unpublished manuscript and research materials, Williams tells a sweeping story of hope, betrayal, disillusionment, and transformation, setting into motion a fresh understanding of the life and mind of arguably the most significant scholar-activist in African American history. In The Wounded World, Chad Williams offers the dramatic account of Du Bois's failed efforts to complete what would have been one of his most significant works. Seeking both intellectual clarity and personal atonement, for more than two decades Du Bois attempted to write the definitive history of Black participation in World War I. Du Bois, believing in the possibility of full citizenship and democratic change, encouraged African Americans to "close ranks" and support the Allied cause in World War I, he made a decision that would haunt him for the rest of his life. Du Bois's reckoning with the betrayal of Black soldiers during World War I- and a new understanding of one of the great twentieth-century writers.
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