The Negro

by W. E. B. Du Bois

Overview

Originally published in 1915, Dr. W.E.B Du Bois' "little book," as he called it, was one of the most important and seminal works on Africa and African American history. It was small in size but gigantic in purpose. In it Du Bois, unquestionably an eminent historian, brilliantly attempted to encapsulate the ten thousand-year record of the people of Africa, then referred to as "Negroes."

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781580730327
Publisher:	Black Classic Press
Publication date:	04/05/2005
Pages:	260
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.75(d)

About the Author

William Edward Burghardt Du Bois (1868-1963) was an American sociologist, author, and cofounder of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). His pioneering work The Philadelphia Negro: A Social Study was originally published in 1890 by, and remains available from, the University of Pennsylvania Press. Robert Gregg is Associate Professor of History, Richard Stockton College of New Jersey. He is the author of Inside Out, Outside In: Essays in Comparative History.

Table of Contents

	Preface	21
I	Africa	23
II	The Coming of Black Men	33
III	Ethiopia and Egypt	43
IV	The Niger and Islam	59
V	Guinea and Congo	73
VI	The Great Lakes and Zymbabwe	89
VII	The War of Races at Land's End	101
VIII	African Culture	113
IX	The Trade in Men	147
X	The West Indies and Latin America	163
XI	The Negro in the United States	183
XII	The Negro Problems	225
	Suggestions for Further Reading	235
	Index	247
	Maps
	The Physical Geography of Africa	22
	Ancient Kingdoms of Africa	100
	Races in Africa	112
	Distribution of Negro Blood, Ancient and Modern	233

Editorial Reviews

Holt published the general history of African Americans in 1915, the year the death of Booker T. Washington left Du Bois (1868- 1963) as nearly the sole African American political and intellectual leader. Kenneth W. Goings (African-American and Africana studies, Ohio State U.-Columbus) contributes an introduction placing it in the context of his life and the times. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Booknews

Hot on the heels of David Levering Lewis's second and final volume of his DuBois biography comes this scholarly yet engaged study of the African diaspora, first published in 1915, and left out of the collected DuBois published by The Library of America. Like Lewis, the editors no doubt considered this a minor work by the controversial intellectual (1868—1963), whose long career spanned the centuries, ending with this co-founder of the NAACP as a hardened communist. But Robert Gregg, who provides a helpful afterword here, argues the merits of a this wide-ranging narrative that begins with prehistoric Africa, follows the migrations to Egypt, the engagement with Islam, the self-sufficiency of pre—slave-era Africa, and the passages to the Caribbean and the US. Not just relevant in terms of DuBois's career, as Gregg documents, this even-tempered treatise serves as "history, anthropology, social commentary" and "as an elegy on the condition of migrancy." DuBois also anticipates the better Afrocentric scholarship, and the notion that race is a social construct. Important by any standard.

Kirkus Reviews

"The book ought to be generally read, for it contains more than mere information. It gathers and sets forth authentic data which form the kind of historic background essential to race consciousness."—James Weldon Johnson

From the Publisher