2?Few books make history and fewer still become foundational texts for the movements and struggles of an entire people. The Souls of Black Folk occupies this rare position.?
--Manning Marable

W.E.B. DuBois was the foremost black intellectual of his time. The Souls of Black Folk (1903), his most influential work, is a collection of fourteen beautifully written essays, by turns lyrical, historical, and autobiographical. Here, Du Bois records the cruelties of racism, celebrates the strength and pride of black America, and explores the paradoxical ?double-consciousness? of African-American life. ?The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color-line, ? he writes, prophesying the struggle for freedom that became his life's work.

Library of America Paperback Classics feature authoritative texts drawn from the acclaimed Library of America series and introduced by today's most distinguished scholars and writers. Each book features a detailed chronology of the author's life and career, and essay on the choice of the text, and notes.

The contents of this Paperback Classic are drawn from W.E.B. Du Bois: Writings, volume number 34 in the Library of America series; that volume also includes The Suppression of the African Slave-Trade, Dusk of Dawn, articles from The Crisis, and selected essays.