Black Reconstruction marked Du Bois’s turn to Marxist-inflected theoretical history.

Evidence

In 1935, Du Bois published his third historical work on the economic forces and ideological dynamics that gave nineteenth-century America its character. Unlike the two previous studies, The Suppression of the African Slave-Trade and John Brown, which were more conventional in narrative and analysis, Black Reconstruction in America possessed a theory of history—a theory based on a foundation of economic analysis and class struggle. It was not simply a historical work, but history subjected to theory. The emphasis was on the relations of things. — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 910

Categorization

• XREF: Du Bois’s trajectory parallels the radicalization arc described throughout the book from cautious critic to militant.