Thomas Sowell was born in
North Carolina and grew up in Harlem. As with many others in his neighborhood,
he left home early and did not finish high school. The next few years were
difficult ones, but eventually he joined the Marine Corps and became a
photographer in the Korean War. After leaving the service, Sowell entered
Harvard University, worked a part-time job as a photographer and studied the
science that would become his passion and profession: economics.
After graduating magna cum laude from Harvard University (1958), he went on to receive his master's in economics from Columbia University (1959) and a doctorate in economics from the University of Chicago (1968).
In the early '60s, Sowell held jobs as an economist with the Department of Labor and AT&T. But his real interest was in teaching and scholarship. In 1965, at Cornell University, he began the first of many professorships. His other teaching assignments include Rutgers University, Amherst University, Brandeis University and the University of California at Los Angeles, where he taught in the early '70s and also from 1984 to 1989.
Sowell has published a large volume of writing. His dozen books, as well as numerous articles and essays, cover a wide range of topics, from classic economic theory to judicial activism, from civil rights to choosing the right college. Moreover, much of his writing is considered ground-breaking -- work that will outlive the great majority of scholarship done today.
Though Sowell had been a regular contributor to newspapers in the late '70s and early '80s, he did not begin his career as a newspaper columnist until 1984. George F. Will's writing, says Sowell, proved to him that someone could say something of substance in so short a space (750 words). And besides, writing for the general public enables him to address the heart of issues without the smoke and mirrors that so often accompany academic writing.
In 1990, he won the prestigious Francis Boyer Award, presented by The American Enterprise Institute.
Currently Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institute in Stanford, Calif.
The Housing Boom and Bust
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Hardcover: 208 pages
Publisher: Basic Books (July 6, 2009)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0465018807
The politics behind all this is another story full of strange twists. No punches are pulled when discussing politicians of either party, the financial dangers they created, or the distractions they created later to escape their own responsibility for what happened when the financial house of cards in the financial markets collapsed.
What to do, now that we are in the midst of an economic disaster, is yet another story�one whose ending we do not yet know, but one whose outlines and implications are explored to reveal some surprising and sobering lessons.
Economic Facts and Fallacies
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Unknown Binding
Publisher: Playaway (May 2009)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0465003494
From one of America's most distinguished economists, a short, brilliant and
revelatory book: the fundamental ideas people most commonly get wrong about
economics, and how to think about the subject better.
Economic Facts and Fallacies exposes some of the most popular fallacies about
economic issues--and does so in a lively manner and without requiring any prior
knowledge of economics by the readers. These fallacies include many beliefs
widely disseminated in the media and by politicians, such as fallacies about
urban problems, income differences, male-female economic differences, as well as
economics fallacies about academia, about race, and about Third World countries.
One of the themes of Economic Facts and Fallacies is that fallacies are not
simply crazy ideas but in fact have a certain plausibility that gives them their
staying power--and makes careful examination of their flaws both necessary and
important, as well as sometimes humorous.
Written in the easy to follow style of the author's Basic Economics, this latest
book is able to go into greater depth, with real world examples, on specific
issues.
On Classical Economics
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Paperback: 320 pages
Publisher: Yale University Press; Reprint edition (October 28, 2007)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0300126069
Thomas Sowell's many writings on the history of economic thought have appeared
in a number of scholarly journals and books, and these writings have been
praised, reprinted, and translated in various countries around the world.
The classical era in the history of economics is an important part of the
history of ideas in general, and its implications reach beyond the bounds of the
economics profession. On Classical Economics is a book from which students can
learn both history and economics. It is not simply a Cook's tour of colorful
personalities of the past but a study of how certain economic concepts and tools
of analysis arose, and how their implications were revealed during the
controversies that followed. In addition to a general understanding of classical
macroeconomics and microeconomics, this book offers special insight into the
neglected pioneering work of Sismondi�and why it was neglected�and a detailed
look at John Stuart Mill's enigmatic role in the development of economics and
the mysteries of Marxian economics.
Clear, engaging, and very readable, without being either cute or condescending,
On Classical Economics can enable a course on the history of economic thought to
make a contribution to students' understanding of economics in general--whether
in price theory, monetary theory, or international trade. In short, it is a book
about analysis as well as history.
A Conflict of Visions:
Ideological Origins of Political Struggles
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Paperback: 352 pages
Publisher: Basic Books; Revised edition (June 4, 2007)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0465002056
Controversies in politics arise from many sources, but the conflicts that endure for generations or centuries show a remarkably consistent pattern. In this classic work, Thomas Sowell analyzes the two competing visions that shape our debates about the nature of reason, justice, equality, and power: the "constrained" vision, which sees human nature as unchanging and selfish, and the "unconstrained" vision, in which human nature is malleable and perfectible. He describes how these two radically opposed views have manifested themselves in the political controversies of the past two centuries, including such contemporary issues as welfare reform, social justice, and crime. Updated to include sweeping political changes since its first publication in 1987, this revised edition of A Conflict of Visions offers a convincing case that ethical and policy disputes circle around the disparity between both outlooks.
Black
Rednecks And White Liberals: And Other Cultural And Ethnic Issues
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Release Date: 30
April, 2005
Media: Hardcover
Manufacturer: Encounter Books
Black identity has become a hot item in the movies, on television, and in the schools and colleges. But few people are aware of how much of what passes as black identity today, including "black English," has its roots in the history of those whites who were called "rednecks" and "crackers" centuries ago in Britain, before they ever crossed the Atlantic and settled in the South.
Saying "acrost" for "across" or "ax" for "ask" are today considered to be part of black English. But this way of talking was common centuries ago in those regions of Britain from which white Southerners came. They brought with them more than their own dialect. They brought a whole way of life that made antebellum white Southerners very different from white Northerners.
Violence was far more common in the South -- and in those parts of Britain from which Southerners came. So was illegitimacy, lively music and dance, and a style of religious oratory marked by strident rhetoric, unbridled emotions, and flamboyant imagery. All of this would become part of the cultural legacy of blacks, who lived for centuries in the midst of the redneck culture of the South.
That culture was as notable for what it did not have as for what it had. It did not emphasize education, for example, or intellectual interests in general.
Illiteracy was far more common among whites in the antebellum South than among whites in the North, and of course the blacks held in bondage in the South were virtually all illiterate. On into the early 20th century, Southern whites scored lower on mental tests than whites in other parts of the country, as blacks continued to do.
Many aspects of Southern life that some observers have attributed to race or racism, or to slavery, were common to Southern blacks and whites alike -- and were common in those parts of Britain from which Southern whites came, where there were no slaves and where most people had never seen anyone black.
Most Southern blacks and whites moved away from that redneck culture over the generations, as its consequences proved to be counterproductive or even disastrous. But it survives today among the poorest and least educated ghetto blacks.
This is a much bigger story than can fit into a newspaper column, which is why I wrote my latest book, "Black Rednecks and White Liberals."
White liberals come into this story because, since the 1960s, they have been aiding and abetting a counterproductive ghetto lifestyle that is essentially a remnant of the redneck culture which handicapped Southern whites and blacks alike for generations.
Many among the intelligentsia portray the black redneck culture today as the
only "authentic" black culture and even glamorize it. They denounce any
criticism of the ghetto lifestyle or any attempt to change it.
Affirmative
Action Around the World : An Empirical Study
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Release Date: 11
March, 2005
Media: Paperback
Manufacturer: Yale University Press
This book moves the discussion of affirmative action beyond the United States to other countries that have had similar policies, often for a longer time than Americans have. It also moves the discussion beyond the theories, principles, and laws that have been so often debated to the actual empirical consequences of affirmative action in the United States and in India, Nigeria, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, and other countries. Both common patterns and national differences are examined. Much of what emerges from a factual examination of these policies flatly contradicts much of what was expected and much of what has been claimed.
Controversial
Essays
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ISBN: 0817929924
Format: Hardcover, 321pp
Pub. Date: August 2002
Publisher: Hoover Institution Press
A prized compilation of Dr. Sowell's popular columns. Included essays
address the following subjects: Economic Issues, Racial Issues, Political
Issues, Educational Issues, Legal Issues and Random Thoughts
Basic
Economics
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ISBN: 046508138X
Format: Hardcover, 384pp
Pub. Date: January 2001
Publisher: Basic Books
Edition Description: 1 ED
From one of America's best-known economists, the one book anyone who wants to understand the economy needs to read.At last there is a citizen's guide to the economy, written by an economist who uses plain English. No jargon, no graphs, no equations. Yet this is a comprehensive survey, covering everything from rent control and the rise and fall of businesses to the international balance of payments. The purpose of Basic Economics is to enable people without any economic training to understand the way the economy functions-not only the American economy, but other economies around the world. Some of the clearest demonstrations of the role of prices, for example, come from economies in which prices are not allowed to function-with consequences which show just what those functions are and what happens when they are lacking. In the end, this is not a book from which to cram facts, but one from which to gain an understanding of the economy that will enable you to form your own conclusions on the basis of tested principles, rather than on the basis of emotion or rhetoric. That is the goal of the journey, but you should also enjoy the trip along the way.
The
Quest for Cosmic Justice
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Format: Paperback, 224pp.
ISBN: 0684864630
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Trade Paperbacks
Pub. Date: February 2002
This book is about the great moral issues underlying many of the headline-making political controversies of our times. It is not a comforting book but a book about disturbing and dangerous trends. The Quest for Cosmic Justice shows how confused conceptions of justice end up promoting injustice, how confused conceptions of equality end up promoting inequality, and how the tyranny of social visions prevents many people from confronting the actual consequences of their own beliefs and policies. Those consequences include the steady and dangerous erosion of fundamental principles of freedom - amounting to a quiet repeal of the American revolution.
A
Personal Odyssey
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Format: Paperback, 320pp.
ISBN: 0684864657
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Trade Paperbacks
Pub. Date: February 2002
This is the gritty story of one man's lifelong education in the school of hard knocks, as his journey took him from Harlem to the Marines, the Ivy League, and a career as a controversial writer, teacher, and economist in government and private industry. It is also the story of the dramatically changing times in which this personal odyssey took place.
The vignettes of the people and places that made an impression on Thomas Sowell at various stages of his life range from the poor and the powerless to the mighty and the wealthy, from a home for homeless boys to the White House, as well as ranging across the United States and around the world. It also includes Sowell's startling discovery of his own origins during his teenage years.
If the child is father to the man, this memoir shows the characteristics that have become familiar in the public figure known as Thomas Sowell already present in an obscure little boy born in poverty in the Jim Crow South during the Great Depression and growing up in Harlem. His marching to his own drummer, his disregard of what others say or think, even his battles with editors who attempt to change what he has written, are all there in childhood.
More than a story of the life of Sowell himself, this is also a story of the people who gave him their help, their support, and their loyalty, as well as those who demonized him and knifed him in the back. It is a story not just of one life, but of life in general, with all its exhilaration and pain.
 Knowledge
& Decisions
From The Publisher: Knowledge and Decisions, a winner of the 1980 Law and Economics Center Prize, was heralded as a "landmark work" and selected for this prize "because of its cogent contribution to our understanding of the differences between the market process and the process of government." In announcing the award, the center acclaimed Sowell, whose "contribution to our understanding of the process of regulation alone would make the book important, but in reemphasizing the diversity and efficiency that the market makes possible, [his] work goes deeper and becomes even more significant." "In a wholly original manner [Sowell] succeeds in translating abstract and theoretical argument into a highly concrete and realistic discussion of the central problems of contemporary economic policy." --F. A. Hayek |
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From The Publisher: |
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 Civil
Rights: Rhetoric or Reality? (November 1985)
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Related Links
Thomas Sowell Column
http://www.basenet.net/~eagle/crisis/commentary_sowell.html
http://psyscope.psy.cmu.edu/childes/infochi/Late-Talking/late-talker4.html
Troubling Facts About Vince Foster's Death
http://www.thesocket.com/~jdenney/sowell.htm
http://cecasun.utc.edu/~jclark/Sowell.htm
http://psyscope.psy.cmu.edu/childes/infochi/Late-Talking/late-talker2.html
http://www.creators.com/opinion/bio/bio-sowe.htm
