Democracy's Reconstruction

W.E.B. Du Bois and the problems of the 21st century

Bibliographic Data

ID20008025
AuthorsLawrie Balfour (0000-0002-2437-4096, corresponding author), Katharine Lawrence Balfour
Year2011
Pages198
Publication date2011-02-17
Open AccessNo
TypeBOOK
VenueDemocracy's reconstruction (SOURCE_BOOK)
PublisherOxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195377293.001.0001
OpenAlexW2486128208
Open LibraryOL24468022M
ISBN9780195377293
LanguageEN
Citations received49

This book challenges a longstanding tendency in political theory: the disciplinary division that separates political theory proper from the study of black politics. Political theory rarely engages with black political thinkers, despite the fact that the problem of racial inequality is central to the entire enterprise of American political theory. To address this lacuna, it focuses on the political thought of W. E. B. Du Bois, particularly his longstanding concern with the relationship between slavery's legacy and the prospects for democracy in the era he lived in. The book utilizes Du Bois as an intellectual resource, applying his method of addressing contemporary problems via the historical prism of slavery to address some of the fundamental racial divides and inequalities in contemporary America. By establishing his theoretical method to study these historical connections, the book positions Du Bois's work in the political theory canon—similar to the status it already has in history, sociology, philosophy, and literature

Critical theory · Democracy · Democratic Theory · Discipline · Epistemology · Inequality · Political economy · Political philosophy · Political science · Politics · Social science · Sociology · Contemporary Sociological Theory and Practice · Law · Philosophy · Race, History, and American Society · Social and Cultural Dynamics · 1868-1963 · African americans · Civil rights · Criticism and interpretation · Du bois, w. e. b. (william edward burghardt) · Political and social views · politics and government · Slavery · Social conditions · united states · W. E. B. Du Bois (1868-1963)

Tools

Open DOILibgen