W.E.B. Du Bois' Success in Writing for Mainstream Publications

In this episode, Van sits down with Adom Getachew to talk about W.E.B. Du Bois’s life and Du Bois-ian thought as a prism for making sense of the world, including: The global color line and its limits for understanding IR; Du Bois’s complicated attitude toward violence versus pacifism; strategies for trying to make change as a public intellectual; how he viewed World War I, and how that view changed with time; his blind spots on gender equality and empire—especially imperial Japan; how Du Bois viewed capitalism and Marxism; why the Cold War is the reason I (and probably you) never learned about Du Bois in school.

W.E.B. Du Bois: International Thought (by Adom Getachew and Jennifer Pitts)

Subscribe to the Un-Diplomatic Newsletter: https://www.un-diplomatic.com