The Souls of Black Folk (Penguin Classics)

The Souls of Black Folk (Penguin Classics) Review

The Souls of Black Folk (Penguin Classics) Feature

• ISBN13: 9780140189988
• Condition: New
• Notes: BRAND NEW FROM PUBLISHER! BUY WITH CONFIDENCE, Over one million books sold! 98% Positive feedback. Compare our books, prices and service to the competition. 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed

The Souls of Black Folk (Penguin Classics) Overview

William Edward Burghardt Du Bois (1868-1963) is the greatest of African American intellectuals - a sociologist, historian, novelist, and activist whose astounding career spanned the nation's history from Reconstruction to the civil rights movement. Born in Massachusetts and educated at Fisk, Harvard, and the University of Berlin, Du Bois penned his epochal masterpiece, "The Souls of Black Folk", in 1903. It remains his most studied and popular work. Its insights into life at the turn of the 20th century still ring true.

The Souls of Black Folk (Penguin Classics) Specifications

William Edward Burghardt Du Bois (1868-1963) is the greatest of African American intellectuals--a sociologist, historian, novelist, and activist whose astounding career spanned the nation's history from Reconstruction to the civil rights movement. Born in Massachusetts and educated at Fisk, Harvard, and the University of Berlin, Du Bois penned his epochal masterpiece, The Souls of Black Folk, in 1903. It remains his most studied and popular work; its insights into Negro life at the turn of the 20th century still ring true.

With a dash of the Victorian and Enlightenment influences that peppered his impassioned yet formal prose, the book's largely autobiographical chapters take the reader through the momentous and moody maze of Afro-American life after the Emancipation Proclamation: from poverty, the neoslavery of the sharecropper, illiteracy, miseducation, and lynching, to the heights of humanity reached by the spiritual "sorrow songs" that birthed gospel and the blues. The most memorable passages are contained in "On Booker T. Washington and Others," where Du Bois criticizes his famous contemporary's rejection of higher education and accommodationist stance toward white racism: "Mr. Washington's programme practically accepts the alleged inferiority of the Negro races," he writes, further complaining that Washington's thinking "withdraws many of the high demands of Negroes as men and American citizens." The capstone of The Souls of Black Folk, though, is Du Bois' haunting, eloquent description of the concept of the black psyche's "double consciousness," which he described as "a peculiar sensation.... One ever feels this twoness--an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder." Thanks to W.E.B. Du Bois' commitment and foresight--and the intellectual excellence expressed in this timeless literary gem--black Americans can today look in the mirror and rejoice in their beautiful black, brown, and beige reflections. --Eugene Holley Jr.

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My Bondage and My Freedom (Penguin Classics)

My Bondage and My Freedom (Penguin Classics) Review

Historians often call the Civil War the first modern war, a precursor to the great battlefield slaughterhouses of the twentieth century. Frederick Douglass shows that America was also first to invent the totalitarian police state. It's hard to believe Stalin didn't have MY BONDAGE AND MY FREEDOM prominently positioned on his bookshelf for frequent consultation because the Soviet system of oppression had so much in common with the system of oppression in the American South. The only significant difference was that, in the Soviet system, absolute power was vested in Stalin; in the American system, absolute power was vested in each slavemaster. Each slavemaster was, in essence, a little Stalin, with life and death power over his slave property.

The slave system rigorously withheld news and information from slaves. A slave often would not know his father or even his own date of birth. He could not lawfully learn to read. He could not travel without written authorization. He could not associate freely with other slaves. He could not safely trust anyone or confide his private thoughts to anyone because planted informers were so numerous. Slaves had to avoid even certain thoughts for fear the slavemaster would see in their facial expressions what was in their minds.

Disguised slave catchers would sometimes help and encourage a slave to escape, only to capture him for the reward. The slavemaster demanded and enforced absolute, immediate, and unquestioned subservience through fear, a liberal use of the lash and the constant threat of transferring a recalcitrant slave to an even harsher labor camp in the deep South.

Yet MY BONDAGE AND MY FREEDOM is by no means a depressing book, thanks to Douglass' irrepressible courage, wit, spirit and good luck when he most needed it. There are even a few intentionally hilarious moments, which I won't give away in this review.

To avoid capture after his escape to the North, Douglass used the fees from his speeches in Great Britain and royalties from his book sales to legally buy his own freedom from his Maryland owner.

The book covers a period of American history I knew little about, the period between the War of 1812 and the Civil War. I didn't know, for example, that the abolition movement early in that period favored secession from the United States on the belief that the Constitution favored the South and backed to the hilt the slave system. An excellent recent book that supports that view is SLAVERY'S CONSTITUTION by David Waldstreicher.

Even though Douglass was a religious, believing Christian, he leveled his most scathing criticism at the way Southerners used Christianity to justify and advance the slave system. He often noted that the cruelest slave masters were also credited as the most religious members of their communities. Some of the worst even had "Rev." attached to their names. The only slavemaster Douglass credited with relative decency and kindness also happened to be an atheist.

My Bondage and My Freedom (Penguin Classics) Feature

• ISBN13: 9780140439182
• Condition: New
• Notes: BUY WITH CONFIDENCE, Over one million books sold! 98% Positive feedback. Compare our books, prices and service to the competition. 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed

My Bondage and My Freedom (Penguin Classics) Overview

Ex-slave Frederick Douglass's second autobiography-written after ten years of reflection following his legal emancipation in 1846 and his break with his mentor William Lloyd Garrison-catapulted Douglass into the international spotlight as the foremost spokesman for American blacks, both freed and slave. Written during his celebrated career as a speaker and newspaper editor, My Bondage and My Freedom reveals the author of the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (1845) grown more mature, forceful, analytical, and complex with a deepened commitment to the fight for equal rights and liberties.

Edited with an Introduction and Notes by John David Smith

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