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Thomas Sowell

Born: 1930 in Gastonia, North Carolina
Pen Name: None

Connection to Illinois: Thomas was born in North Carolina but grew up in Harlem. In 1968 he earned his doctorate degree in economics from the University of Chicago.

Biography: Thomas Sowell has taught economics at Cornell, UCLA, Amherst and other academic institutions, and his Basic Economics has been translated into six languages. He is currently a scholar in residence at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. He has published in both academic journals in such popular media as the Wall Street Journal, Forbes magazine and Fortune, and writes a syndicated column that appears in newspapers across the country.


Awards:

Primary Literary Genre(s): Non-Fiction; Other

Primary Audience(s): Adult readers

Website: http://tsowell.com/
Thomas Sowell on WorldCat : http://www.worldcat.org/search?q=thomas++sowell


Selected Titles

A conflict of visions /
ISBN: 0688069126 OCLC: 14068452

W. Morrow, New York : ©1987.

Controversies in politics arise from many sources, but the conflicts which endure for generations or for centuries show a remarkably consistent pattern. This book maintains that the enduring political controversies of the past two centuries reflect radically different assumptions about the nature of man. The very meaning of such words as "freedom," "equality," "rights," and "power" is drastically different in the context of different visions of man. Issues as diverse as criminal justice, income distribution, or war and peace repeatedly show those with one vision lining up on one side and those with another lining up on the other. The varied writings of such landmark figures as Adam Smith, Edmund Burke, Oliver Wendell Holmes, and Milton Friedman show the clear mark of one vision, while the opposite vision is manifested in another tradition which extends from Thomas Paine and Condorcet to George Bernard Shaw, John Kenneth Galbraith, and John Rawls. At the heart of the conflict are questions about the moral and intellectual capabilities of human beings, and how these capabilities vary from one individual or group to another. The historical record shows these assumptions to be surprisingly different from what is commonly believed about the basic premises of the political left and the political right. The purpose of this book is not to choose between the two principal visions of the modern era, but to show the inherent logic of each. These are not rarefied theoretical--everyone is part of the conflict, and the stakes are as real as money, power, and survival.--From publisher description.

Barbarians inside the gates--and other controversial essays
ISBN: 081799582X OCLC: 40135214

Hoover Institution Press, Stanford, Calif. : ©1999.

In this latest collection of his always provocative essays, Thomas Sowell once again demonstrates why he is one of the most thoughtful, readable, and controversial thinkers of our time. With his usual unrelenting candor, Sowell cuts through the stereotypes, popular mythology, and mush surrounding the critical issues facing our nation today.

Civil rights :
ISBN: 0688031137 OCLC: 11211219

W. Morrow, New York : 1984.

Compassion versus guilt, and other essays /
ISBN: 0688071147 OCLC: 15520023

Morrow, New York : ©1987.

Collection of columnist Thomas Sowell's controversial columns about issues ranging from homelessness, foreign policy, AIDS, environmentalism, education, law, race and nostalgia.

Conquests and cultures :
ISBN: 0465014003 OCLC: 38130578

Basic Books, New York : ©1998.

This book is the culmination of 15 years of research and travels that have taken the author completely around the world twice, as well as on other travels in the Mediterranean, the Baltic and around the Pacific rim. Its purpose has been to try to understand the role of cultural differences within nations and between nations, today and over centuries of history, in shaping the economic and social fates of peoples and of whole civilizations.

Ethnic America :
ISBN: 0465020747 OCLC: 7306301

Basic Books, New York : ©1981.

Traces the story of nine different ethnic groups in American society, discussing their various reactions to the American experience, cultural and hisotrical backgrounds, patterns of difficulty, and modes of success.

Inside American Education
ISBN: 9781439107621 OCLC: 869432034

Simon & Schuster, [Place of publication not identified] : 2010.

An indictment of the American educational system criticizes the fact that the system has discarded the traditional goals of transmitting knowledge and fostering cognitive skills in favor of building self-esteem and promoting social harmony.

  Markets and minorities
ISBN: 0631126740 OCLC: 7684953

Basil Blackwell for the International Center for Economic Policy Studies, Oxford : 1981.

Markets and minorities /
ISBN: 0465043992 OCLC: 7885618

Basic Books, New York : 1981.

Marxism :
ISBN: 0688064264 OCLC: 13096110

Quill, New York : ©1985.

Provides a step-by-step introduction to Marxian theories.

  Marxism :
ISBN: 9781470848316 OCLC: 874035639

Marxism is a term that many people freely use, but few seem to grasp its implications. Sowell's book is the antidote to this problem. He writes in a fluid and easy-to-follow manner, leading the listener through the Marxian scheme of ideas. Along the way, he shatters some existing interpretations of Marx-interpretations that have developed through repetition rather than through scholarship.

Say's law :
ISBN: 0691041660 OCLC: 521688

  Say's law :
ISBN: 9780691619569 OCLC: 905861740

Say's Law--the idea that supply creates its own demand--Has been a basic concept in economics for almost two centuries. Thomas Sowell traces its evolution as it emerged from successive controversies, particularly two of the most bitter and long lasting in the history of the discipline, the general glut controversy that reached a peak in the 1820s, and the Keynesian Revolution of the 1930s. These controversies not only involved almost every noted economist of the time but had repercussions on basic economic theory, methodology, and sociopolitical theory. This book, the first comprehensive coverage of the subject, will be an indispensable addition to the history of economic thought. It is also relevant to all social sciences concerned with economic prosperity, with the nature of intellectual orthodoxy and insurgency, or with the complex relationships among ideology, concepts, and policies. Originally published in 1972. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These paperback editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

The economics and politics of race :
ISBN: 0688048323 OCLC: 9254508

The Einstein Syndrome :
ISBN: 046508141X OCLC: 59339879

Two separate studies of children who are exceptionally bright, and at the same time exceptionally late in beginning to speak, provide the background for the dramatic story of these children and their often anguished parents. Although such children have begun to be studied only within the past decade, numerous examples have turned up across the United States and overseas.

The vision of the anointed :
ISBN: 046508995x OCLC: 32430520

BasicBooks, New York : ©1995.

Debunks myths of "political correctness," criticizes assumptions made by American social policy makers from the 1960s through the '90s, and addresses logical missteps made by political and intellectual elites.

  The vision of the anointed :
ISBN: 9781441756657 OCLC: 671530962

Blackstone Audio, Inc., [Ashland, OR] : ℗2010.

In this devastating critique of the mindset behind the failed social policies of the past thirty years, Thomas Sowell sees what has happened not as a series of isolated mistakes, but as a logical consequence of a vision whose defects have led to disasters in education, crime, family disintegration, and more. This is an empirical study in which politically correct theory is repeatedly confronted with facts, and the sharp contradictions between the two are explained in terms of a set of self-congratulatory assumptions held by political and intellectual elites. These elites--the anointed--often consider themselves thinking people, but this thinking is actually rhetorical assertion, followed by evasions of mounting evidence against these assertions. The vision of the anointed is seen not merely as a failure but as a fatal danger to the values and the future of American society.

 

 

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