This monumental biography--eight years in the research and writing--treats the early and middle phases of a long and intense career: a crucial fifty-year period that demonstrates how Du Bois changed forever the way Americans think about themselves.

Praise

"A remarkable study . . . . Mr. Lewis so vividly evokes the environments that shaped Du Bois that one almost participates in the life."
--Waldo E. Martin, Jr., The New York Times Book Review

"An engrossing masterpiece . . . . A dazzling feat of scholarship performed with Lewis's customary grace of style."--Nell Irvin Painter, The Washington Post Book World

"To say that Lewis's is the finest biography of Du Bois ever written hardly does justice to his performance. Until the publication of this superb new book, Du Bois's life had never received the treatment it deserves."--Eric Foner, The Nation

"A marvel of scholarship and discernement. David Levering Lewis's remarkable, stunningly detailed book reshapes our understanding of Du Bois at so many points as to instantly become the standard biography."--Martin Bauml Duberman

About the Author(s)

David Levering Lewis

David Levering Lewis is the Martin Luther King Jr., chair in the history at Rutgers University. He has been awarded fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, Woodrow Wilson International Center, the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, the National Humanities Center, and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. Educated at Fisk and Columbia Universities and the London School of Economics and Political Science, Professor Lewis is the author of several acclaimed books, including King: A Biography, When Harlem Was in Vogue, The Race to Fashoda. He and his wife live in Manhattan.