 What might be called a “deflationist” approach to the interpretation of Du Bois’s conception of double-consciousness is pursued by Adolph Reed, Jr., in his 1997 book on Du Bois’s political philosophy, W.E.B. Du Bois and American Political Thought: Fabianism and the Color Line. Reed’s book offers a critique of what he dubs “vindicationist” approaches to Afro-American political thought—approaches attempting to show the significance of the work of African-American theorists by tracing analogies and lines of influence between them and the “greats” of the European tradition (1997: 12). The double polemical thrust of Reed’s text, with respect to double-consciousness, is to question the alleged sources of influence on Du Bois’s thinking, and to refute the claim that Du Bois’s formulation refers to a transhistorical feature of black life in America. He points to the 