Drawing on a broad range of sources, most notably Du Boiss unpublished manuscript and research materials, Williams tells a sweeping story of hope, betrayal, disillusionment, and transformation, setting into motion a fresh understanding of the life and mind of arguably the most significant scholar-activist in African American history. The surprising story of this unpublished book offers new insight into Du Boiss struggles to reckon with both the history and the troubling memory of the war, along with the broader meanings of race and democracy for Black people in the twentieth century. In The Wounded World, Chad Williams offers the dramatic account of Du Boiss failed efforts to complete what would have been one of his most significant works. 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. 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. Du Boiss reckoning with the betrayal of Black soldiers during World War I-and a new understanding of one of the great twentieth-century writers.
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