Un-American

“Bill Mullen’s Un-American is a fascinating account of Du Bois’s revolutionary thinking and a remarkable contribution to Du Bois studies. Mullen explores in impressive detail the long developing influence of Marx, Marxist theoreticians, and a broader spectrum of radical thinkers and activists from across the globe on Du Bois’s political thought and vision for human liberation. In doing so Mullen illuminates seldom-explored writings and activities from the final decades of Du Bois’s career while successfully reinterpreting familiar texts and events from earlier periods. Mullen also develops his own keen theoretical observations from both the insights and contradictions of Du Bois’s thought and that of those with whom he was in dialogue.”—Eric Porter, Professor of History and History of Consciousness at the University of California, Santa Cruz

“Un-American is a bold and long overdue inquiry into ‘the late Du Bois,’ full of keen originality and brilliantly associative thinking. With his signature level of professional competence, Mullen defies easy categorizations to track the black radical scholar’s diasporic identity through the optic of ‘world revolution.’ This investigation, vexed by the political horrors of imperialism, fascism, and Stalinism, yields unexpected and revealing parallels with the ideas of revolutionary thinkers such as Leon Trotsky and C.L.R. James. The result is a landmark study in the contours of affiliation, expanding the archive and breaking down polarized thought. This is a book to engage, chew over, and debate.”—Alan Wald, H. Chandler Davis Collegiate Professor of American Culture, University of Michigan