CONTRIBUTOR
REGIONAL PERSPECTIVES / NATIONAL IMPACT
Thomas Sowell
Member For
33 weeks 2 days
BIOGRAPHY
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 1963, at Douglass College, he began the first of many professorships. His other teaching assignments include Cornell Univeresity, Rutgers University, Amherst University, Brandeis University, and the University of California at Los Angeles, where he taught in the early '70s.
Sowell has published a large volume of writing. His 28 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. Sowell's most recent book, On Classical Economics, is an historical review of classical economics consisting of a series of essays. David C. John of the Roe Institute for Economic Policy studies calls it "An important, beautifully researched collection" that is able "to clearly and simply explain both complex questions of economic theory and how they developed."
Though Sowell had been a regular contributor to newspapers since the late '70s, 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.
Currently, Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution in Stanford, Calif.
COMMENTARIES
A Show About Nothing
By Thomas Sowell | 06/09/09
Doing nothing might seem to be simple and easy. But there are many varieties of nothing, and some kinds of nothing can get very elaborate and complex. In courts of law, for example, "concurrent sentences" mean that nothing is being done to punish a convicted criminal for some of his crimes, since the time he is serving for one crime is being served concurrently with the time served for other crimes. A study in Britain found that,... read more »
3 Comments | Related Topics »National |
Media Circles Sotomayor's Wagons
By Thomas Sowell | 06/02/09
As the mainstream media circles the wagons around Judge Sonia Sotomayor, to protect her from the consequences of her own words and deeds, its main arguments are distractions from the issue at hand. A CNN reporter, for example, got all worked up because Rush Limbaugh had used the word "racist" to describe the judge's words. Since it has been repeated like a mantra that Judge Sotomayor's words have been "taken out of... read more »
2 Comments | Related Topics »National |
Keeping Humble Beginnings in Perspective
By Thomas Sowell | 06/02/09
As part of the biographical preoccupation with Judge Sonia Sotomayor's past, the New York Times of May 31st had a feature story on the various New York housing projects in which she and other well-known people grew up-- including Whoopi Goldberg, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Thelonious Monk and Mike Tyson. There was a map of New York City and dots pin-pointing the location of the project in which each celebrity grew up. As an old New Yorker, I was... read more »
2 Comments | Related Topics »National |
Eloquence Without Wisdom
By Thomas Sowell | 05/28/09
The other day I sought a respite from current events by re-reading some of the writings of 18th century British statesman Edmund Burke. But it was not nearly as big an escape as I had thought it would be. When Burke wrote of his apprehension about "new power in new persons," I could not help think of the new powers that have been created by which a new President of the United States -- a man with zero experience in business -- can... read more »
2 Comments | Related Topics »National |
Judicial Activism With 'Empathy' for Some
By Thomas Sowell | 05/26/09
It is one of the signs of our times that so many in the media are focusing on the life story of Judge Sonia Sotomayor, President Obama's nominee for the Supreme Court of the United States. You might think that this was some kind of popularity contest, instead of a weighty decision about someone whose impact on the fundamental law of the nation will extend for decades after Barack Obama has come and gone. Much is being made of the fact that... read more »
4 Comments | Related Topics »National |
Observations on Today's Political Climate
By Thomas Sowell | 05/26/09
They say that people mellow with age. However, the older I get, the less patience I have with cleverness. If increased government spending with borrowed or newly created money is a "stimulus," then the Weimar Republic should have been stimulated to unprecedented prosperity, instead of runaway inflation and widespread economic desperation that ultimately brought Adolf Hitler to power. Just days after Colin Powell informed us... read more »
4 Comments | Related Topics »National |
A Picture Paints a Thousand Words
By Thomas Sowell | 05/19/09
The media have an obvious vested interest in constantly urging that cameras be allowed in more places where governmental decisions are being made, including the Supreme Court of the United States. Like so many things that are said to be good for the public, this is something that would be good only for its advocates-- and harmful to the process of making decisions in the public interest, as distinguished from providing a forum for... read more »
2 Comments | Related Topics »National |
Free Markets Take the Fall for Politicians. Again.
By Thomas Sowell | 05/13/09
After virtually every disaster created by Beltway politicians you can hear the sound of feet scurrying for cover in Washington, see fingers pointing in every direction away from Washington, and watch all sorts of scapegoats hauled up before Congressional committees to be denounced on television for the disasters created by members of the committee who are lecturing them. The word repeated endlessly in these political charades is... read more »
2 Comments | Related Topics »National |
Only Common Sense is Being Tortured
By Thomas Sowell | 05/12/09
One of the many signs of the degeneration of our times is how many serious, even life-and-death, issues are approached as talking points in a game of verbal fencing. Nothing illustrates this more than the fatuous, and even childish, controversy about "torturing" captured terrorists. People's actions often make far more sense than their words. Most of the people who are talking lofty talk about how we mustn't descend to the level of... read more »
9 Comments | Related Topics »National |
Obama Conceals His Supreme Court Agenda
By Thomas Sowell | 05/07/09
While President Barack Obama has, in one sense, tipped his hand by saying that he wants judges with "empathy" for certain groups, he has in a more fundamental sense concealed the real goal -- getting judges who will ratify an ever-expanding scope of the power of the federal government and an ever-declining restraint by the Constitution of the United States. This is consistent with everything else that Obama has done in office and is... read more »
3 Comments | Related Topics »National |
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