W.E.B. Du Bois on empires and colonies, 1896–1963

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This article explores the scholarly and journalistic contributions made by W.E.B. Du Bois to the history and theory of modern colonialism. Because Du Bois’s understanding of colonialism evolved radically over his lifetime, this article examines all of his relevant writing on the topic--nearly 300 separate texts, written between the 1880s and the twilight of his life. The article also traces the connections between Du Bois’s ideas about colonialism to changing intellectual, political, and personal contexts. While showing that there is no singular “Du Boisian” theory of colonialism, the article concludes that Du Bois made a number of important suggestions that can contribute to further colonial studies. Du Bois urged researchers to track historical transformations in the forms of colonial rule, to compare national styles of colonialism, to trace the connections between colonialism and class formation and racial oppression in the metropoles, and to focus on the ways colonialism stems from economic and political power motives as well as ideological discourses and other practices including racism. He argued that slavery ended in the New World when it became more profitable for European capital to exploit African labor in Africa. He supported the political program of amalgamating colonial-era political units into larger African states. He pointed to the relations between science and colonialism. The survey of Du Bois’s colonial studies is preceded by a brief discussion of postcolonial and decolonial approaches to canon revision and intellectual decolonization. Some of Du Bois’s statements could be read as violating sociology’s present-day norms, such as his support for certain forms of colonialism and his description of certain colonized populations as “semicivilized.” The article argues for a more tolerant, multiplex approach to historic thinkers that pays attention to the ways in which they may both conform to and move beyond the intellectual constraints of their time and place. Like Marx, Weber, and Durkheim, Du Bois should be retained in sociology’s canon.