In this groundbreaking book, Aldon D. Morris’s ambition is truly monumental: to help rewrite the history of sociology and to acknowledge the primacy of W. E. B. Du Bois’s work in the founding of the discipline. Calling into question the prevailing narrative of how sociology developed, Morris, a major scholar of social movements, probes the way in which the history of the discipline has traditionally given credit to Robert E. Park at the University of Chicago, who worked with the conservative black leader Booker T. Washington to render Du Bois invisible. Morris uncovers the seminal theoretical work of Du Bois in developing a “scientific” sociology through a variety of methodologies and examines how the leading scholars of the day disparaged and ignored Du Bois’s work.
The Scholar Denied is based on extensive, rigorous primary source research; the book is the result of a decade of research, writing, and revision. In exposing the economic and political factors that marginalized the contributions of Du Bois and enabled Park and his colleagues to be recognized as the “fathers” of the discipline, Morris delivers a wholly new narrative of American intellectual and social history that places one of America’s key intellectuals, W. E. B. Du Bois, at its center.
The Scholar Denied is a must-read for anyone interested in American history, racial inequality, and the academy. In challenging our understanding of the past, the book promises to engender debate and discussion.
Aldon D. Morris is Leon Forrest Professor of Sociology and African American Studies at Northwestern University and the author of The Origins of the Civil Rights Movement: Black Communities Organizing for Change, among other books.
“In The Scholar Denied, Aldon Morris tests, and convincingly proves, the belief, too long repressed, that W. E. B. Du Bois not only played a pivotal role in the birth of modern scientific sociology in America but was its founding father, on either side of the color line. Toppling prevailing truths like the towering genius at the center of this development, Morris’s account offers a fresh and crisply researched reinterpretation of Du Bois’s pathbreaking Atlanta school of sociology and is sure to be a major book.”—Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Alphonse Fletcher University Professor, Harvard University
“Aldon Morris’s The Scholar Denied: W. E. B. Du Bois and the Birth of Modern Sociology is one of those landmark studies that change the way we think about a historical occurrence. This well-written book is replete with original insights that challenge conventional wisdom on the origins and development of American sociology. Morris’s meticulous scholarship, based on a careful analysis of revealing primary documents as well as secondary sources, details fascinating and new information regarding Du Bois’s seminal role in the development of scientific sociology and his relationships with Booker T. Washington, Robert Park, and other members of the Chicago school, and with the preeminent social scientist Max Weber. The Scholar Denied is a must-read for those interested in how race, power, and economics determine the fate of intellectual schools.”—William Julius Wilson, Lewis P. and Linda L. Geyser University Professor, Harvard University
“Aldon Morris has given us a great gift: the truth of Du Bois’s genius and America’s denial of it! Don’t miss this pioneering text!”—Cornel West
"An eye-opening book! Aldon Morris has written a biography not of W. E. B. Du Bois the man, but of Du Bois's magisterial work and how it fared in the disciplinary scramble for preeminence. In the process, Morris turns the lens of sociological analysis on the discipline itself, with bracing and essential conclusions."—Frances Fox Piven, Distinguished Professor, Graduate Center of the City University of New York
"This is a stunningly original history that should inspire both debate and self-reflection within and beyond the discipline of sociology for years to come."—Mitchell Duneier, Maurice P. During Professor of Sociology, Princeton University
320 pp.6 x 9Illus: 23 gathered plates, 3 scattere
9780520286764$29.95|£25.00Paper
Jan 2017