{"id":40881,"date":"2015-04-16T19:29:18","date_gmt":"2015-04-16T19:29:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/wordpress\/?p=40881"},"modified":"2017-04-19T14:27:35","modified_gmt":"2017-04-19T14:27:35","slug":"lines-of-descent-w-e-b-du-bois-and-the-emergence-of-identity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=40881","title":{"rendered":"Lines of Descent: W. E. B. Du Bois and the Emergence of Identity"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lines of Descent: W. E. B. Du Bois and the Emergence of Identity<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Harvard University Press<\/a>
\nFebruary 2014
\n240 pages
\n4-3\/8 x 7-1\/8 inches
\nHardcover ISBN: 9780674724914<\/p>\n

Kwame Anthony Appiah<\/strong><\/a>, Professor of Law and Philosophy
\nNew York University<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

W. E. B. Du Bois<\/a> never felt so at home as when he was a student at the University of Berlin<\/a>. But Du Bois was also American to his core, scarred but not crippled by the racial humiliations of his homeland. In Lines of Descent<\/em>, Kwame Anthony Appiah traces the twin lineages of Du Bois\u2019 American experience and German apprenticeship, showing how they shaped the great African-American scholar\u2019s ideas of race and social identity.<\/p>\n

At Harvard, Du Bois studied with such luminaries as William James<\/a> and George Santayana<\/a>, scholars whose contributions were largely intellectual. But arriving in Berlin<\/a> in 1892, Du Bois came under the tutelage of academics who were also public men. The economist Adolf Wagner<\/a> had been an advisor to Otto von Bismarck<\/a>. Heinrich von Treitschke<\/a>, the historian, served in the Reichstag<\/a>, and the economist Gustav von Schmoller<\/a> was a member of the Prussian state council<\/a>. These scholars united the rigorous study of history with political activism and represented a model of real-world engagement that would strongly influence Du Bois in the years to come.<\/p>\n

With its romantic notions of human brotherhood and self-realization, German culture held a potent allure for Du Bois. Germany<\/a>, he said, was the first place white people had treated him as an equal. But the prevalence of anti-Semitism<\/a> allowed Du Bois no illusions that the Kaiserreich<\/a><\/em> was free of racism. His challenge, says Appiah, was to take the best of German intellectual life without its parochialism\u2014to steal the fire without getting burned.<\/p>\n

Table of Contents<\/strong><\/p>\n