Jason Riley’s biography, Maverick: A Biography of Thomas Sowell, makes the case that economist Thomas Sowell is one of the most underappreciated intellectuals of our time. Riley, a Wall Street Journal columnist, believes that Sowell has never gotten his due from the academic establishment because he questions sacrosanct liberal dogmas and inconveniently defies stereotypes. Sowell is presented as a brave academic dissident who had the courage to stand against the tide.
Riley is not the only one who believes this. Thomas Sowell is widely respected among conservatives. He has released dozens of books that remain in print—on topics ranging from education to immigrant cultures to affirmative action—and may be the best-selling popular economics writer in the country. At age 93, he has just published his latest, Social Justice Fallacies. Videos of Sowell on YouTube rack up millions of views. Nobel Prize-winning economist Friedrich von Hayek called Sowell’s book Knowledge and Decisions “the best book on economics in many a year,” “essential to understanding current affairs,” and “an important philosophical work.” Steven Pinker has called Sowell “among the most brilliant thinkers in the world today—deep, original, creative, fearless, intimidatingly erudite.” Amy Chua of Yale Law school calls Sowell “one of the most important thinkers of our time.” Shelby Steele describes Sowell as a man of “extraordinary genius” and “one of the greatest American thinkers who has ever lived.” The ...
FIRST ON FOX: A Mexican national who voted illegally in U.S. elections and falsely claimed to be a citizen has been convicted and could face removal under federal immigration law. The Department o...