The Book Prize Index

W. E. B. Du Bois: Biography of a Race, 1868–1919

David Levering Lewis

This monumental biography by David Levering Lewis--eight years in the research and writing--treats the early and middle phases of a long and intense career: a crucial fifty-year period that demonstrates how W.E.B. Du Bois changed forever the way Americans think about themselves.

BiographyBiography · medium confidenceBiography81 signalsLlm Classifier: Biography -> BiographyGoogle Books: Biography & Autobiography -> Memoir & AutobiographyGoogle Books: Biography & Autobiography -> BiographyBusiness Biography

Award History

4 wins · 6 total

AwardYearResultCategory / Notes
Bancroft PrizeMajor1994WinnerOfficial source
Pulitzer Prize in Biography or AutobiographyMajor1994WinnerSecondary source
Francis Parkman Prize1994WinnerSecondary source
Phi Beta Kappa Book Awards: Ralph Waldo Emerson Award1994WinnerOfficial source
National Book Award for NonfictionMajor1993FinalistSecondary source
National Book Critics Circle Award for BiographyMajor1993FinalistSecondary source
View all award history (6)
Experimental book profileGenerated by GPT-5.4 nano · may contain inaccuracies

This is an unverified interpretation of the catalog description, offered as an opt-in discovery experiment—not as bibliographic fact.

  1. 01 Central figures

    • W. E. B. Du Bois95%

  2. 02 Central places

    None extracted with sufficient confidence.

  3. 03 Suggested argument

    The biography argues that W.E.B. Du Bois’s early and middle career helped forever change how Americans think about themselves.

    Model confidence 66%

  4. 04 Reading orientation

    45 / 100 academic

    Trade / academic crossover

    An estimate of intended readership and scholarly apparatus—not quality or importance.

Confidence percentages are the model's own estimates. Profile confidence: 62%.