ABSTRACT
The Souls of Black Folk is by far the most widely known of W. E. B. Du Bois’s books. It probably ranks among a handful of the most broadly recognized titles in black American literature. From the standpoint of the historian of political thought, the very fact that the book has come to occupy such an iconic space is worthy of note and examination in its own right. After all, Du Bois published two books of non-fiction before and at least nine after Souls, including the posthumously published Autobiography. 1 Most of these books were written for popular, or at least nonspecialist, audiences, and most were noted, reviewed, and read at the time of their publication. Darkwater and Dusk of Dawn have been regarded as powerful analyses and commentaries on their times. And over the course of the sixty years between initial publication of Souls and Du Bois’s death, his views on several core topics changed substantially. Yet it is Souls that has become the definitive Du Bois text, especially since the late 1980s.
