Thomas Sowell
Race and Economics stands as Thomas Sowell's notable work, a book that established his reputation as an economist engaged with questions of race and economic life in the United States. The work occupies a central place in his career and connects his scholarly training to the public arguments he would pursue across subsequent decades as a columnist and educator.
Sowell was born on June 30, 1930, in Gastonia. His education moved through a series of distinguished institutions: he attended Stuyvesant High School, then Howard University, followed by Harvard University, Columbia University, and the University of Chicago. It was at the University of Chicago that he became associated with the Chicago school of economics, a movement whose intellectual currents shaped his formation as an economist. From that foundation he went on to work as a university teacher, building the scholarly career from which his writing would grow.
Beyond the university, Sowell worked as a columnist, bringing his analysis as an economist to a general readership through journalism. He is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, a position that has defined a significant portion of his career. He has also been associated with the movement of black conservatism, a connection that has figured in discussions of his work and his place in American public life. His identity as an economist, educator, columnist, and fellow at a major research institution reflects the range of roles he has occupied as a citizen of the United States.
For his contributions, Sowell has received the National Humanities Medal, the Francis Boyer Award, and the GetAbstract International Book Award. These three recognitions, drawn from different contexts of evaluation, mark the breadth of acknowledgment his work has received. The National Humanities Medal, in particular, represents formal recognition at the national level, and its presence alongside the Francis Boyer Award and the GetAbstract International Book Award places Race and Economics and the wider body of his work within a record of documented achievement.
Quotes by Thomas Sowell
Thomas Sowell's insights on:
As for gun control advocates, I have no hope that any facts whatever will make the slightest dent in their thinking - or lack of thinking.
What do you call it when someone steals money secretly? Theft. What do you call it when someone takes money by force? Robbery. What do you call it when a politician takes someone else's money and gives it to someone likely to vote for him? Social Justice.
The welfare state is not really about the welfare of the masses. It is about the egos of the elites
Disagree with someone on the right and he is likely to think you obtuse, wrong, foolish, a dope. Disagree with someone on the left, and he is more likely to think you selfish, a sell-out, insensitive, possibly evil.
It's amazing how much panic one honest man can spread among a multitude of hypocrites.
Balanced budget requirements seem more likely to produceaccounting ingenuity than genuinely balanced budgets.
In Washington, the clearer a statement is, the more certain it is to be followed by a 'clarification' when people realize what was said.
What is more frightening than any particular policy or ideology is the widespread habit of disregarding facts.