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A reader with warm memories of David Levering Lewis's effervescent When Harlem Was in Vogue (1981) approaches this first half of Lewis's two volume study of William Edward Butghardt Du Bois anticipating a book as rich and as deep as the best biographies, for instance, Martin B. Duberman's highly impressive Paul Robeson (1988). I was disappointed; W. E. B. Du Bois did not fulfill my expectations.
W. E. B. Du Bois is a richly informative but often frustrating book. Reading it is work, not pleasure. While it presents an intriguingly complex portrait of Du Bois, a reader's appreciation of Du Bois's life is sometimes hindered by Lewis's peculiar interpretive speculations. Lewis has done excellent work in filling in the gaps and correcting the inaccuracies that mar Du Bois's own autobiographies, but a more energetic editorial hand would have saved Lewis from missteps both large and small and might have made possible a more succinct one-volume portrait that would be far more accessible and widely read than this two-volume work.
Lewis's greatest challenges in W. E. B. Du Bois are to paint a clear picture of Du Bois the man and to present a convincing portrait of the importance of his work. In my estimation, Lewis succeeds far better at the first of these tasks than at the second.
Lewis is at his best in constructing an impressively detailed account of Du Bois's childhood and school years. Lewis may devote more attention to Du Bois's ancestors than many readers will think necessary, but Lewis's sleuthing into Du Bois's tangled and sometimes troubled family toots is undeniably the greatest scholarly achievement of this volume. Lewis also persuasively sketches Du Bois's impressive academic precocity from high school through Fisk, Harvard, and Berlin and successfully captures Du Bois's deep frustration with the intense academic racism of the 1890s and 1900s, which left him with insultingly few employment opportunities.
Slowly at first, and then more frequently in discussion of the years after Du Bois left...