A portrait of a revered Civil Rights figure during a time of domestic and international uncertainty, widespread racial violence, and the looming threat of war. The Wounded World examines Du Bois’ public and behind-the-scenes efforts and plans in the lead-up to the U.S. entering the First World War, and his struggle to tell the story of the experiences black soldiers had on the front lines.

I found this book to be a very informative and accessible look into the motivations and efforts of W.E.B Du Bois in the early 20th Century. His attempts to leverage the war, and specifically black military service, as a way to garner government protection for Black Americans in the face of widespread Jim Crow and lynching campaigns.

I thought that this text was very commercially accessible, however, I would have preferred it to have had more organization and structure. At times, it felt personally difficult to follow as Williams tended to rapidly switch to different points in the timeline in the same paragraph, or to the actions of another historical figure that was in the periphery of Du Bois’ efforts. I prefer historical non-fiction which from the beginning, clues the reader into the structure of the text and how the subject matter will be looked at.

Clearly, there was a ton of research and time that went into writing this book. Williams pulls from not only Du Bois but many other figures who were operating in the same timeline as, or in tandem with him. However, without a sense of overarching analysis of this information and the recurring themes, the text ended up being a long firehose of historical facts and anecdotes. To me, Williams spent way too much time down in the historic weeds so to speak, and as a result, the text felt unfocused and in the end unhoned.

Chad L Williams has concentrated his biography of DuBois on the activist/intellectual’s remarks and writings on war and black soldiers during World War I. DuBois used his column in the NAACP’s Crisis to urge black men to join the military. He believed if Black men put aside their fight for equal rights temporarily to fight as citizens for a country treating them as second-class citizens, the United States would respect their loyalty and patriotism and change segregation practices. DuBois’ efforts were instrumental in getting black men trained as officers. He championed his friend, West Point graduate and colonel, Charles Young, betrayed by the US military. The compromise that units would be segregated was expected. But DuBois did not expect the deep entrenchment of racial hatred Black soldiers, from officer to private, would report. Treatment from their comrade-in-arms they said was worse than the punishment meted out to the enemy, the stripping of rank of Black officers, court-martials of non-coms for infractions and false accusations, which portrayed returning Black soldiers as cowards and criminals. During rising mob violence, lynchings, and massacres of Black communities after the war, DuBois’ documentation of the Black soldier during the war evolved through stages of racial discrimination in the United States from presidential administrations from Wilson to Roosevelt. The cause of wars, DuBois insisted, the color line and colonialism, the lust of imperialist and capitalist nations for the wealth of colored nations.

As DuBois’s book on the Black man in World War I, out grew the subject and the League of Nations failed and gave rise to the United Nations, DuBois believed his work-in-progress to be a blueprint for world peace.

DuBois’ reputation as an author, activist and intellectual, for many, myself included, rests on his book The Soul of Black Folk and his remark about the double consciousness of Black Americans, penned decades ago. His book on Blacks and the First World War, had he ever finished, from what Chad Williams brilliantly outlines in his exciting biography, would have established DuBois as a formidable historian. Still, DuBois’ unfinished tome is one I would like to read.

Thank to Net Galley and Farrar, Straus and Giroux for an advanced copy of this book.

W. E. B. Du Bois was the great American sociologist, socialist, historian, Pan-Africanist civil rights activist and co-founder of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). During the US's build up to join world war, Du Bois was considered the foremost Black American thinker and leader. World War I would serve as a catalyst for US Society, undergoing rapid and wide ranging change including the Great Migration, rise in lynchings and reestablishment of the KKK, anti-imperialism as a political force, the USA as a global power and the beginnings of isolationism.

In The Wounded World: W. E. B. Du Bois and the First World War, Professor Chad L Williams centers Du Bois's work during the war, and how the struggle to advance Black Americans' civil rights shaped Du Bois writings and philosophy for peace after the war. Du Bois set out to write THE Black American experience of World War I, drawing from the official records; photos, letters and memoirs of the veterans; and his own research and writings.

This is an in-depth look at Du Bois, we get a full biography, but the book is focused on Du Bois in the twentieth century. It is through his writings (letters, articles or other documents) that we see the course of World War I and Du Bois's changing viewpoint. Initially, the European conflict was the foreseeable end point of the quests for imperial territory. However, once the United States joined the war it was an opportunity to spread the democratic ideals of the US both internally and globally. It is through this perspective that Du Bois went all in for the war, despite being a pacifist. He even pursued joining the military. The publishing "Close Ranks," in July 1918 brought Du Bois to the nadir of his influence only redeemed through the NAACP's assignment of writing the history of the Black American experience during the world war.

Williams centers this narrative arc as a tragedy, across twelve chapters. Divided into parts of four, we begin with "Hope" (Part 1, Chapters 1 - 4) before falling into "Disillusion" (part 2, Chapters 5 - 8), ending with "Failure" (Part 3, chapters 9-12). Throughout Du Bois remains very active, publishing articles in several newspapers and many books (Including: Darkwater, The Gift of Black Folk and Black Reconstruction), with the biggest and most ambitious project, eventually named The Black Man and the Wounded World perpetually in progress and seeking the funds to complete it.

An excellent work of scholarship that is both an in-depth biography and a close study of the Black American experience in early 20th century America. Pairs well with Matthew Delmont's Half American: The Epic Story of African Americans Fighting World War II at Home and Abroad .

This book is so good! In depth look at Du Bois evolution of ideas over time and how the Great War impacted them. Plenty of back story about the ins and outs of his relations with other intellectuals. Much less on personal life, but that is my preference. Importantly brings out the role of funding, placement, and precarity in the life of an academic and in the production and preservation of knowledge. I'll be tossing this around in my head for a long while. When will we get The Wounded World? This needs to hit the public in some form, nevermind the treasure trove of accompanying primary documents. Please edit and publish this someone!!