Sowell, Thomas (1930–)

ECONOMIST, LECTURER, researcher, and author Thomas Sowell was born in Gastonia, North Carolina, during the depths of the Great Depression, but moved to Harlem, New York City, as a child and attended public schools. Sowell entered Howard University, an African American university in Washington, D.C., but after a year and a half, he transferred to Harvard University where he majored in economics. Sowell received his bachelor's degree in economics from Harvard in 1958, his master's degree in economics from Columbia University in 1959, and his Ph.D. in economics from the University of Chicago in 1968. Throughout his career, Sowell's writing demonstrates academic rigor, lucid prose, and powerful arguments. He is a libertarian in economics and a conservative on most social issues, but he has registered as an independent in politics since 1972.

Sowell's greatest exposure is his regularly syndicated columns, which appear as part of Jewish World Review, and the internet site Townhall. His columns appear in over 150 newspapers. Many Americans know Sowell through his appearances on the Rush Limbaugh Show, when fellow black economist Walter Williams of George Washington University serves as substitute host for Limbaugh. Limbaugh's listeners enjoy listening in as Williams and Sowell discuss the free market and traditional social values. The conversations aired between Williams and Sowell are enlightening, educational, and informative. Despite his prodigious work for academics and government officials, he communicates successfully with those who are not economists or professors. Recent publications written for a nonacademic audience include Basic Economics (2000) and Applied Economics(2003), in which Sowell demonstrates his ability to make difficult subject matter understandable and practical.

A prolific writer, he has written works on economics, history, social policy, ethnicity, and the history of ideas. His specialty is economic history, a discipline close to his heart. Yet, since finishing his formal education and leaving the university for a think tank, he is much more interdisciplinary in his approach to his writing and research. He has authored 26 books, compiled seven collections of his syndicated columns, written two monographs, and written several scholarly articles in both academic and popular publications. He is also a contributor to several anthologies.

Sowell brings varied experience to his work. He has served as labor analyst for the Department of Labor, lecturer, professor, project director for the Urban Institute, and since 1980, he has worked as a Rose and Milton Friedman Senior Fellow in Public Policy at the Hoover Institution in War, Revolution, and Peace, located on the campus of Stanford University in California. His work at the Hoover Institution is the most productive of his career.