Chad Williams, "The Wounded World: W. E. B. Du Bois and the First World War" (FSG, 2023)

New Books in African American Studies · May 5, 2023 · 56m

When W. E. B. 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. 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. His book, however, remained unfinished. In The Wounded World: W. E. B. Du Bois and the First World War (FSG, 2023), Chad Williams offers the dramatic account of Du Bois's…