W. E. B. Du Bois, Race, and the City: "The Philadelphia Negro" and Its Legacy [Paperback]

Michael B. Katz (Editor), Thomas J. Sugrue (Editor)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0812215931 | ISBN-13: 978-0812215939 | Publication Date: April 20, 1998

In 1896 W. E. B. Du Bois began research that resulted three years later in the publication of his great classic of urban sociology and history, The Philadelphia Negro. Today, a group of the nation's leading historians and sociologists celebrate the centenary of his project through a reappraisal of his book. Motivated by Du Bois's deeply humane vision of racial equality, the contributors draw on ethnography, intellectual and social history, and statistical analysis to situate Du Bois and his pioneering study in the intellectual milieu of the late nineteenth century, consider his contributions to the subsequent social scientific and historical studies of the city, and assess the contemporary meaning of his work. Together these essays show that The Philadelphia Negro remains as vital and relevant a book at the end of the twentieth century as it was at the start.

Contributors include Elijah Anderson, Mia Bay, V. P. Franklin, Robert Gregg, Thomas C. Holt, Tera W. Hunter, Jacqueline Jones, Antonio McDaniel, and Carl Husemoller Nightingale.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"A splendid collection of essays."—Times Literary Supplement

"This book not only reassesses the role of W. E. B. Du Bois as a public intellectual but reappraises the impact of his seminal study on interpretations of the twentieth-century African-American experience…It offers an interdisciplinary critique that will shape scholarship in the twenty-first century."—Joe W. Trotter, Carnegie Mellon University

"There is unanimity among these historians and sociologists in ascribing seminal importance to The Philadelphia Negro."—David Levering Lewis, Journal of American History

About the Author

Michael B. Katz is Sheldon and Lucy Hackney Professor of History at the University of Pennsylvania and author of Improving Poor People: The Welfare State, the "Underclass," and Urban Schools as History, among other books. Thomas J. Sugrue is Associate Professor of History at the University of Pennsylvania. He is the author of The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit.

Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press (April 20, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0812215931
• ISBN-13: 978-0812215939
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.2 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #770,553 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Thomas J. Sugrue is a twentieth-century American historian who teaches at the University of Pennsylvania. He's the author or editor of four books and has published essays and reviews in the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, the Boston Globe, the London Review of Books, and the Nation. His newest book is Not Even Past: Barack Obama and the Burden of Race. He's working on a history of real estate in modern America.

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5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent, October 12, 2010

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This review is from: W. E. B. Du Bois, Race, and the City: "The Philadelphia Negro" and Its Legacy (Paperback)

This book is excellent. It is an exceptional read; this book is historically connected to not just Dr. Dubois but understood and written as a benchmark for urban studies! A must read for all who want to engage African Americans in America or urban studies post the 20th Century.