Lines of descent W.E.B. Du Bois and the emergence of identity

Appiah (New York Univ.), a distinguished philosopher, explores the manner in which Du Bois wrestled throughout his life with the problem of reconciling his conflicting "identities." The pioneering African American thinker was born in Massachusetts; studied with Henry James, Josiah Royce, and George Santayana at Harvard; and then pursued graduate study in philosophy in Germany before returning to the US to pursue a career of pioneering scholarship and black leadership. Du Bois's graduate studies led him to become, paradoxically, a "cosmopolitan nationalist," attracted by the historian Heinrich von Treitschke's "racial romanticism" while aiming to overcome its "parochialism." Like the Italian nationalist Giuseppe Mazzini, Du Bois viewed the "race ideal" as essential to "human progress," but he held that "the demand for national rights" was morally defensible "only if it was claimed equally for all nations." Hence, though the American Negro legitimately had a higher concern for "his own kind," he "had obligations to people of other races" and would "gain greatly from conversations" with them. Unfortunately, Appiah acknowledges, though Du Bois had reasons for anger at the US's mistreatment of black people, his late enthusiasm for Communist tyrannies exemplified "a blind spot for nonracial forms of domination." --David Schaefer, College of the Holy Cross

*Starred Review* Du Bois' insights into the double consciousness of black Americans came as much from his experiences as a student in Germany as from his own complex life as an American citizen and scholar at Harvard, argues philosophy scholar Appiah. In Germany, studying under philosophers who were also public men, Du Bois honed his own understanding of the struggle between individual and group (or race) identity. Du Bois drew on German philosophers, primarily, to reconcile his enthusiasm for individualism and concern for the development of the race. Du Bois' work pulses with individualist and collectivist rhetoric, in an alternating current, as he struggled to balance the view of the scholar and the subject, offering dry statistics and passionate observations. Du Bois challenged scientific racism of the time, arguing that race was less a biological concept than a sociological and historical one, decades before that view was widely espoused, and he argued that the problem of the color line was not limited to the U.S. In this slim but splendid book, Appiah explores Du Bois' works and the personal and philosophical struggle behind them as Du Bois used all the analytical tools of sociology yet lived the tortures of racism, even more so because his education and personal elegance did not exempt him from its indignities.--Bush, Vanessa Copyright 2014 Booklist