Obviously he's not to blame for this, his task at the time was to counter the narratives about Reconstruction, and he obviously succeeded at that. There is so much detail, I honestly can say I don't know the rough timeline of reconstruction because he spent so little time giving overall descriptions. That topic is the main reason I read this, and I'm glad I did. Some of the ideas about the white proletariat, in both the northern and southern context, is super helpful in thinking about the roots of racist reaction in the united states.
Interestingly, DuBois labels this as a "general strike," an anarcho-syndicalist term that you'd think he would avoid due to being a classical Marxist.
Additionally, DuBois shows how slaves fled their masters' plantations to join the Union army and, by doing so, created the incentive for Abraham Lincoln to issue the Emancipation Proclamation, winning the Civil War for the north. This is a monumental work of research, meant to counter the white narratives of reconstruction as being a failure due to the ignorance and laziness of recently emancipated blacks. As a result, the majority of the world's laborers became part of a system of industry that destroyed democracy and led to World War I and the Great Depression. Moreover, the resulting color caste was adopted, forwarded, and approved by white labor, and resulted in the subordination of colored labor throughout the world. If he believes that the Negro in America and in general is an average and ordinary human being, who under given environment develops like other human beings, then he will read this story and judge it by the facts adduced." The plight of the white working class throughout the world is directly traceable to American slavery, on which modern commerce and industry was founded, Du Bois argues. Du Bois's words best indicate the broader parameters of his work: "the attitude of any person toward this book will be distinctly influenced by his theories of the Negro race.
Du Bois, one of the greatest intellectual leaders in United States history, evaluates the twenty years of fateful history that followed the Civil War, with special reference to the efforts and experiences of African Americans. Subsequently, these former slaves attempted to reconstruct the basis of American democracy. After four centuries of bondage, the nineteenth century marked the long-awaited release of millions of black slaves.
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