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Black Rednecks and White Liberals

Thomas Sowell

4.40 · Rating details · 4,950 ratings · 666 reviews

This book presents the kind of eye-opening insights into the history and culture of race for which Sowell has become famous. As late as the 1940s and 1950s, he argues, poor Southern rednecks were regarded by Northern employers and law enforcement officials as lazy, lawless, and sexually immoral. This pattern was repeated by blacks with whom they shared a subculture in the ...more

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Hardcover, 372 pages

Published June 1st 2005 by Encounter Books (first published April 30th 2005)

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Sep 03, 2011 Vannessa Anderson rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: nonfiction, favorite-books, american-history

It’s not often that a reader opens a work of non-fiction and the words written on the first page has such an impact that it smacks the reader so hard the reader has to rub his/her cheek to soothe the blow.

This is the impact I felt with Black Rednecks and White Liberals. The first page drew me in and made it a challenge not to call work and say I wouldn’t be in because I didn’t want to put the book down.

What I liked about Black Rednecks and White Liberals is that it reinforced what I already knew

...more

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Dec 09, 2008 Seth rated it really liked it

Fantastic approach to race and discrimination. I enjoyed his research about the roots of "redneck culture" originating in Scotland and other fringe areas of the Brittish Empire.

I thought the views on "middle-men minorities" and "segregated schools" were especially insightful. He approaches every topic with a balanced yet incisive perspective.

For example, he forgives Washington's slave ownership. He reminds us that men of fortune during the colonial period viewed their family fortunes as someth Fantastic approach to race and discrimination. I enjoyed his research about the roots of "redneck culture" originating in Scotland and other fringe areas of the Brittish Empire.

I thought the views on "middle-men minorities" and "segregated schools" were especially insightful. He approaches every topic with a balanced yet incisive perspective.

For example, he forgives Washington's slave ownership. He reminds us that men of fortune during the colonial period viewed their family fortunes as something to preserve and to be passed down to others. Washington viewed his role as a steward and not as an owner of his property (implying that he wasn't at liberty to free his slaves because they were not his to free but his entire family's). Washington freed his slaves in his will because there were no heirs to his estate, thus, releasing Washington from the responsibility of preserving it. Washington thoroughly explained in the will how his slaves would be supported by the estate. Some of his slaves were supported for decades after Washington's death.

He makes a similar defense for Jefferson. He dismisses any historical perspective that pretends the "west" is the originator of evils such as slavery, violence, and conquest. He compares the "west's" treatment of slaves to the "east's" and finds middle eastern and Asian countries less civil and more barbaric in regards to slavery, racism, and conquests. He persuasively argues that had it not been for the West's views of freedom and moral objections to slavery then the rest of the world would never have seen a problem with it. The uniqueness of the West is in the fact that they globally abolished it even when the rest of the world resisted.

Sowell is smart, hard hitting, honest, and freshly independent. His approach to black school's and western slavery will fascinate you. His essays on German culture are especially rewarding. The fact that he is black gives him a certain level of freedom in his criticism of black culture and liberal correctness that makes this book one of a kind. ...more

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Dec 17, 2016 Douglas Wilson rated it it was amazing

Shelves: history

Dense. Thorough. Balanced. Eye-opening. Magnificent.

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Apr 26, 2013 Andy rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Update, 2018: I used to give blahblah like this the benefit of the doubt as a “conversation starter” but given the obvious and real current dangers of BS, I’m lowering the rating to 1*. Please see comment stream for additional details.

This can be a good conversation starter, but it has flaws.

One of the main excuses Sowell brings up over and over for why whites in the South wouldn't end slavery is that they were afraid of a race war because of the rebellion on Santo Domingo (Haiti). What he neve Update, 2018: I used to give blahblah like this the benefit of the doubt as a “conversation starter” but given the obvious and real current dangers of BS, I’m lowering the rating to 1*. Please see comment stream for additional details.

This can be a good conversation starter, but it has flaws.

One of the main excuses Sowell brings up over and over for why whites in the South wouldn't end slavery is that they were afraid of a race war because of the rebellion on Santo Domingo (Haiti). What he never clarifies is that those slaves had been liberated previously by the republic founded in the French Revolution and were then re-enslaved by Napoleon a few years later. That's a rather important detail . (A captivating recent book about this is The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo). The relevant part of the story for the white Americans' fear of race war is what happened after the initial emancipation. Did the newly freed blacks kill the whites? No. So the story of Santo Domingo is actually not a legitimate excuse for fear of race war, and could be used more accurately to make the opposite point!

The biggest disappointment is a lack of evidence-based recommendations for what will work here and now. Sowell makes a really big deal about evidence, so that is a fair expectation. He praises KIPP schools, but KIPP so far has failed in the long-term. He doesn't talk at all about the experience of the schools in Raleigh, North Carolina, which as far as I know is the one example of an entire American metropolitan area with children succeeding: see Hope and Despair in the American City: Why There Are No Bad Schools in Raleigh . I would have liked much more about that and other programs that actually work to move from a culture of failure to a culture of success.

One of the main points of the book is that black people in America mainly jumped in prosperity before the Civil Rights Act, not after, and the implication of that is that government programs don't help. But there were many factors involved. In the years from 1945 to 1965, middle-class prosperity overall in America jumped a lot, much of that on the strength of government policies designed to increase middle class prosperity. Did the prosperity of black people jump less, the same, or more than that of other people during this time? That, for starters, would be very important to know for the argument.

The book goes off on a tangent about German anti-semitism. Sowell quotes Hitler as saying that if Jews didn't exist, he would have had to invent them. I can't find a source verifying where Hitler said this. It seems hard to believe. I think the actual quote is from Sartre's "Reflections on the Jewish Question" where he writes that If the Jew did not exist, the anti-semite would invent him.
This is a political opinion book, not serious history, but then it is annoying how much Sowell trumpets his own supposed thoroughness and objectivity.

For better books about why there might be differences in wealth-building in America by race.

The Color of Law A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America by Richard Rothstein

The New Jim Crow Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander

...more

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Mar 12, 2010 Don Fox rated it it was amazing

Wow, what an achievement. Though a more accurate title might have been "Essays in Ethnology", "Black Rednecks and White Liberals" consists of six amazing essays, which collectively constitute the best book I've ever read. Every page presents startling, important, and little known facts that are apparently little known because they contradict the prevailing narrative about race and ethnicity. Did you know, for example, that:

* "...labor force participation rates were higher among non-whites than a ...more

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Jul 07, 2018 Jeanette rated it it was amazing

It's beyond my ability to relate to the review readers the hefty substance of this book.

The research and the source material alone are treasures, but the encapsulation of these subject (chapter headings) all combined and with threads in the dozens that entwine each other! Beyond my ability to sufficiently describe. How different cultures have formed over centuries and movements and have keep their original cultures in stronger flavors than the original populations that stayed "put". That alone It's beyond my ability to relate to the review readers the hefty substance of this book.

The research and the source material alone are treasures, but the encapsulation of these subject (chapter headings) all combined and with threads in the dozens that entwine each other! Beyond my ability to sufficiently describe. How different cultures have formed over centuries and movements and have keep their original cultures in stronger flavors than the original populations that stayed "put". That alone was some of the most intriguing proofs of empirical data I've read in twenty years.

It's just exceptional in the fact data alone- but the mix of cause and effect and his observations of results long term- not only the most clear intelligence but the least bias of direction in these fields of multi-cultural mix effects and progressions. Quite beyond the prediction, into the data of "after".

But as fabulous as this book was in the clear "eyes" and historical context of the fact/data history and the interpreted to "causes" history- the last chapter was the one that I consider priceless. Especially within the time frame in which it was written. Because he's a true prophet.

"History Versus Visions" is the best prose length I've ever read upon history and the recording of the past itself. And how when we revise it and "take sides" it is no longer history. Not because of objectivity but primarily for the faults of omission. And the implications of fault, blame or honest differences- his explanations are correct, masterful. Please read this chapter if nothing else.

How could he have had a thick enough skin to have written all of these studies and conclusions when he did? What a intellect. My summation of about 1/2 of the conclusions he has defined here! Not an explanation, but just my reaction of awe. Honesty coupled with immense strength, courage and a logic of analysis that is genius perfection.

The chapters upon the "Real History of Slavery", "Are Jews Generic", and "Germans and History" were, for my reading them, entire books within themselves. And they took that long to read too.

With that second, I have always noted the reactions to "middle men" (bankers, tax collectors, shop keepers, merchants) in present day cultures, myself. Because most, if not all, of my ancestors were "middle men" and also in great numbers migrant over generations by the fact.

Lastly, when I read some of these reviews for this book now after I have read it? Amazing that any reader could begin to assume that Thomas Sowell has reached conclusions before assembling the factors towards it. All of his thought processes are exactly the opposite.

So many common day Western world "assumptions" upon culture and society "help" are absolutely just that, assumptions. Growth in educational aptitudes and innovative completions, better living conditions over generations of health/art/literature/longevity and much else that results in "better" needs to be very much reevaluated in this century, IMHO, in that criteria light. ...more

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Nov 23, 2014 Philip Maher rated it did not like it · review of another edition

The book is a perfect example of confirmation bias, as the author starts with a conclusion and gives cherry-picked facts to support it. Indeed, what he calls facts are actual facts, but one should think critically of them. If I formulate a hypothesis that the sun revolves around the earth then I can state the supportive observation that the sun moves across in the sky, certainly a fact. We obviously know that my original hypothesis is wrong but I use this example because this book is littered wi ...more

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Jul 03, 2013 Tammy McNiel rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites, politics, history, nonfiction

WOW! This book was a complete eye-opener and changed how I viewed the history of slavery and blacks in America. As a white person, I'm shocked, appalled and relieved at the same time.

What my intuition told me was wrong about massive social programs was vocalized and backed up by facts for me with this book. A lot of what I thought about slavery and oppression was turned on its head. I was appalled that I was never taught ANY of this in school, and I have extensive college education. What I real ...more

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Jun 25, 2015 Bob Anderson rated it it was ok

This book is a collection of a few long essays from Sowell, an economist of some fame, and of special value to conservatives because he is an African-American conservative intellectual. I’ll be discussing only the first, titular, essay in this book, because it’s the one I was most interested in. I think it’s fair to judge a book on its most advertised section, don’t you? Sowell’s thesis here is that nearly all of serious problems facing black Americans today come from a culture they shared durin This book is a collection of a few long essays from Sowell, an economist of some fame, and of special value to conservatives because he is an African-American conservative intellectual. I’ll be discussing only the first, titular, essay in this book, because it’s the one I was most interested in. I think it’s fair to judge a book on its most advertised section, don’t you? Sowell’s thesis here is that nearly all of serious problems facing black Americans today come from a culture they shared during slavery with white Southerners which those white people cast aside and those black people spread these last decades, and from the condescension of white liberals (by which he means programs such as welfare in its various forms and affirmative action). He claims that this culture, a violent “cracker” culture of machismo from England’s borderlands in pre-colonial times that was transplanted by a few immigrants to the American South, is the explainer of current economic disadvantage much more so than racism or prejudice, and that black people will have to voluntarily discard it and not receive welfare in order to prosper.

However much this theory sounds like the academic equivalent of blaming rap music and sagging pants for inner-city violence, such easy mockery doesn’t actually disprove his claims. There is either significant evidence against or no real evidence for the two parts of his argument, though: there is no reason to suggest that this “cracker” culture spread from Renaissance-era Britain to modern black people, and there is evidence that such a culture isn’t the explainer of modern racial economic inequality. To support his theory that ruffians from England’s hinterlands are the primary cultural influences on modern black people, he cites a book called Cracker Culture published in the 1980s by a fringe scholar named Grady McWhiney. This book was not widely accepted, to say the least, not least because of the problems with its theory: Celtic immigrants of the type he talks about were influential in both the North and the South instead of just the latter, and genteel Englishmen were certainly not unrepresented in the Southern culture. And none of this explanation of antebellum North/South differences, if true, can serve to replace an actual cultural history of black people in America from the 1800s to today with the convenient explanation Sowell needs for his thesis.

As to the second part of Sowell’s argument, that for black people in America to prosper they must receive no government help, forsake their violent culture, and copy the successful white people around them, it doesn’t hold up. Certainly violence in black communities is a problem and unwanted, but the arrow of cause and effect doesn’t match Sowell’s model: violence doesn’t create and perpetuate poverty, but poverty can create and perpetuate violence. Some simple points: the antebellum South was very prosperous despite having one of the most insanely violent systems on the planet in place (it was slavery, not “cracker culture”), whereas the correlation between long-poor populations and high rates of violence is omnipresent in the world. Populations don’t start off rich, begin tolerating violence and so become poor. Furthermore, cutting off black children from food stamps, housing assistance and public schools would in absolutely no way produce a new generation more likely to succeed because they were “hungrier”; you’d see a lot more homeless children of billionaires if this were a logic designed for use on anyone other than poor minorities. And emulation of whites is not a surefire way to the top either; the quality Sowell would most like to see is a strong work ethic, and many studies that research this exact phenomenon show that if anything, black people work harder than white people. Still not sweeping economic justice. Sowell’s arguments have many holes like these, based on insufficient evidence or wishful thinking, or even counter-factual claims about reality. Sowell is correct when he states that race is not a cause of this inequality; race is not, in fact, a determiner of skill, motivation, etc. But he is wrong to suggest that racism isn’t. There is a wealth of evidence that points at the great importance of racism in the history of America, and none that points away. Read this book only with these grains of salt in mind.

Two stars for being interestingly written even if I disagree with nearly every word on some pages. ...more

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Jun 22, 2020 booklady rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Thank you to those unknown souls who have gone before and added so many of Thomas Sowell’s quotes to the Goodreads data base, especially those from this book, many of which are listed below. With respect to Black Rednecks & White Liberals, I highlighted many of the same quotes, but was delighted to become aware of those others. As for the vast reservoir of his other quotes, I could have ‘liked’ 99.9% of them, but there were so many I needed to get on with other things.

Thomas Sowell is a brillian ...more

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Jan 05, 2017 Drew rated it did not like it

Trash.
I respect that Prof. Sowell is trying to make a complicated point for a general audience, but so much of the language in this book, language that comes from Prof. Sowell and NOT from his sources, seem better placed in a high-school English essay than in a book. I made it through about 10 pages before I stopped, mostly because I couldn't trust what I was reading - how much of it was "fact", as Prof. Sowell seems all to glad to highlight at every chance he gets, and how much was the author's Trash.
I respect that Prof. Sowell is trying to make a complicated point for a general audience, but so much of the language in this book, language that comes from Prof. Sowell and NOT from his sources, seem better placed in a high-school English essay than in a book. I made it through about 10 pages before I stopped, mostly because I couldn't trust what I was reading - how much of it was "fact", as Prof. Sowell seems all to glad to highlight at every chance he gets, and how much was the author's own subjective understanding coming out through his own analysis, unsupported?

Here are some choice passages that made me question what I was reading, and ultimately put the book down.

"In earlier centuries, Scotland was a poor and backward country, like Wales and Ireland..." p.5. The use of "backward" here has strong implications. Prof. Sowell contends that people from the American south emigrated from these regions, so by association, if these regions were "backward", then people from the American south would be "backward." That term conveys a very particular view of southern Americans, beyond the citations that are provided.

"In this world of impotent laws, daily dangers, and lives that could be snuffed out at any moment, the snatching at whatever fleeting pleasures presented themselves was at least understandable." p.5. Understandable by who? Understandable by Prof. Sowell? Quite the claim, with lots of assumptions. Again, this is not cited, and stands on its own as a pretentious and patronizing characterization of life that is somehow not as good as the more "forward", maybe, parts of the British isles.

Same paragraph:
"Books, businesses, technology, and science were not the kinds of things likely to be promoted or admired in the world of rednecks and crackers." My god, what? This is not supported by any evidence - Prof. Sowell makes what might to him be an obvious connection between "backwardsness" and liking to read, but that's only on his own personal analysis, not based on anything he seems to take from other writings. Could you provide a citation that says "Because people threw chamber pots out of their windows instead of having running water, then they obviously don't like books?"

The whole thesis of this book seems to be that these somehow-undesirable people from Scotland came to the American south, then passed on their somehow-undesirable culture to African-Americans, and that this culture is now embodied in urban poor areas... so this quote seems to imply that, in the long run, the reader should see how (obviously) African Americans don't like books (because of course black people don't like to read, am I right, guys?) I just can't with these assumptions.

Racism? I can't tell, and that makes me very wary.

Trash trash trash. Maybe if this had been written more objectively, or if Prof. Sowell had been able to hold back his own biased analysis of his "facts", then this book would be readable. It seems like there could be some interested observations in here - I would be interested in learning about demographic shifts, and cultural attitudes that come with cultural shifts during immigration - but I am not interested in biased writing that can crawl like a worm into my own analysis without my knowing it. No thank you, Professor. ...more

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Jul 26, 2011 Steven Percifield rated it really liked it · review of another edition

A few years after reading "A conflict of Visions" by Sowell a friend of mine (who is African-American) recommended this book to me. We had been debating our individual impressions of racial relationships between black and white friends. I had made the comment that there were "archetypal motiffs" common to persons on both sides of the color line.

Although my friend agreed with me "...on average," he suggested that I read this book as it would give me a new perspective of a black intellectual's opi ...more

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Jan 30, 2017 Randall Jackson rated it it was ok

A woeful attempt in painting with the brush of a simple explanation to cover a complex social issue. The reader must first accept the authors's openly prejudiced view of southern Whites, then the reader must extrapolate that view to Black culture to be able to agree with his conclusions. This scholar, beforehand, states that his views which are commonly discussed among scholars and academia, would be hardly heard by the lay person. The proclamation itself is proof that he is not in touch with th ...more

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May 28, 2019 Laila rated it it was amazing

Shelves: read-non-fiction

While I don't have favourite author per se, I must admit over the years, Thomas Sowell's writings have strong influence on my way of thinking, such as the wisdom to be critical on how an argument is packaged and presented particularly those by politicians, academia and experts, and above all--facts matter. Of all Thomas Sowell's books that I read thus far, this book is one that resonate the most to me, it's has global relevance even though the focal point of this book was an America's theme. ...more

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Jun 09, 2020 Shayla Mays rated it did not like it

I better understand why Candace Owens mentioned Thomas Sowell as someone she thinks highly of and has learned from. Sowell not only obviously holds a huge prejudice against southern white people, but he also attempts to speak too confidently about a black culture he doesn't truly represent. ...more

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Oct 04, 2018 Khari rated it it was amazing

Shelves: non-fiction, absolutely-must-read-again

Wow.

There's not much more that I can say about this book other than 'woah'.

This was my first time through this book and I listened to it. The reader was great. Good on you Blackstone Audio for producing such a gem. On the other hand...I'm probably going to go buy this book, possibly in hard cover...it was that good and that intense. Just listening through it once was akin to dipping my toe into the ocean. There is a whole lot of information that I still can't wrap my mind around. I quoted half o Wow.

There's not much more that I can say about this book other than 'woah'.

This was my first time through this book and I listened to it. The reader was great. Good on you Blackstone Audio for producing such a gem. On the other hand...I'm probably going to go buy this book, possibly in hard cover...it was that good and that intense. Just listening through it once was akin to dipping my toe into the ocean. There is a whole lot of information that I still can't wrap my mind around. I quoted half of this book as I was reading it and it still wasn't enough for me to understand it all.

One of the major things that I was struck with while reading this book was how often scholars and intellectuals do not read outside their own area of expertise. I'm a linguist, I have an MA in linguistics and we had several class discussions on AAVE (African American Vernacular English) aka Ebonics, and in not one of those classes was I introduced to the concept that many of the linguistic features of Ebonics were extant in 18th century England. That's kind of important. It does not surprise me that this isn't well known in the linguistic community: one, few read outside of their own specialty anymore and two, there are plenty of places where linguists fear to trod because of political repercussions and grant denials. On the other hand...as a linguist, I am still skeptical of Sowell's clear assertions, especially because a cursory search on Google scholar didn't really give me anything to back him up. On the other hand, a historian would have way more street cred with digging up first hand documentation of these phenomena than a run-of-the-mill linguist like me, so, to clarify this in my own mind I need to buy the physical copy of this book, check the notes, and then read his sources to find out for myself. I will actually probably do this, because I'm curious and linguistic puzzles are fun.

I also thought it was interesting because a lot of the ideas that I encountered in this book I have encountered recently in other non-fiction books that I read. It was interesting to see parallels between this book and Murray's 'Coming Apart'. Even though the authors were approaching different problems they came to similar conclusions based on the empirical evidence, and that was interesting. There were parallels between this book and the 'Sports Gene' book that I read before it (Why on earth would there be?!?! A book about genetics and sports written by a sports reporter shouldn't have parallels to a book about history written by an economist!). There were even parallels between Sowell's discussion of intelligence and Jordan Peterson's discussion of it.

Probably the greatest lesson I walked away with from this book was the nuance of history. The whole last chapter was about how we must not judge history or historical figures by the moral viewpoints or the cultural expectations of the modern age. As obvious of a truth as this is, it's still quite profound and very difficult to practice. I had never thought about the question: "How would you have felt if you were an Arawak who had their land taken away?" as a terrible question. I had always though, well, it's good for us to think by putting ourselves in other people's shoes. I still think that is the case, but Sowell made me view that question from another angle. How I as a millennial woman from a Western background view having my land taken from me is as far removed from how an Arawak would have felt as an alien imagining how I feel about riding a horse. My cultural history, values, experiences, concept of right and wrong, expectations of the universe, etc. are all different making it very difficult to even have a concept of how such a person would have felt. And that was his point, not that such a question is not valuable, but that it is not history. The place for such a question is after you have done the research to find out all of those things about that Arawak, then you can answer that question, anything else is rank speculation. What he said after that really smacked me upside the head, he said how can we imagine the impact of Columbus on an Arawak? There are no Arawaks left and they didn't leave any written records of what they thought or felt.

That really struck me. Not least because it's true!!! How bloody arrogant of us all, when we answer questions like 'How do you think they would have felt?' Really, what makes us think that we have the right to answer that?! I can't even put into words what I feel half of the time, feeling like I have the right to explain someone else's just seems like rank arrogance to me now. The other thing that really struck me is how sad that is. How sad that we will never know what the Arawaks thought and felt. It made me fear the future. So much of our knowledge and experience as humans is being written in cloud formats now, we have no way of knowing how enduring that will be. In the past humans wrote down what was important to them in the most age-defying and long lasting material they could find, literally carving it into stone and here we are entrusting it all to the most ephemeral of things: essentially electrical signals. It made my mind explode.

Anyway, read this book, learn about why the Marines have 'From the shores of Tripoli' in their song, about the success of certain schools in contrast to other schools, about pedagogies that work and those that don't, and about the dangers of letting ideologies dictate history instead of history being examined for its own value. It's a great book. ...more

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Apr 24, 2017 Leslie Wiewel rated it it was amazing

Shelves: read-audio-books

Fascinating review of historical race data with bold, honest evaluation from an astounding mind

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Jul 10, 2020 Taylor rated it did not like it

I read this book as part of a deal with a friend. He accused me of not being well acquainted with the counterarguments to my views that we have a problem with systemic racism in this country. I told him I would read any book of his recommendation on the subject if he would do the same. In the end, I agreed to read this book, and he agreed to read Michelle Alexander’s New Jim Crow. After reading this book, the first essay is the one that speaks to the issue of whether systemic racism exists in th I read this book as part of a deal with a friend. He accused me of not being well acquainted with the counterarguments to my views that we have a problem with systemic racism in this country. I told him I would read any book of his recommendation on the subject if he would do the same. In the end, I agreed to read this book, and he agreed to read Michelle Alexander’s New Jim Crow. After reading this book, the first essay is the one that speaks to the issue of whether systemic racism exists in the US today.

So, in a nutshell the first essay of Sowell’s book says:

1) Rednecks from N. England/Scotland settled the American south and brought their culture, including violence, ultra-sensitivity to perceived slights, laziness, and lax sexual mores (these characteristics are collectively referred to in the book as “redneck culture”).

2) Redneck culture was adopted by black slaves in the antebellum south.

3) Over time, southern whites largely abandoned redneck culture because the consequences of bad behavior associated with the culture motivated them to change.

4) Blacks, on the other hand, exported redneck culture to cities throughout the country during the great migration, and have never been able to escape the culture because white liberals allow them to escape the consequences of their actions via the social safety net, etc. The result is modern day urban black ghettos.

5) Also, none of this is the result of slavery, as proven by the fact that some free blacks in the north were also descended from slaves in the Caribbean, yet never adopted redneck culture.

To say that the premise and conclusions drawn by Sowell here are problematic would be the ultimate understatement.

First, if (arguendo) an entire racial group adopted cultural practices of another group while enslaved by that other group, how can Sowell argue that slavery was not a cause of that adoption? Slaves were uprooted from their native land and forced under threat of violence and death to abandon their culture. Somehow, then, adopting a form of the culture of their new environment was not a result of slavery?

Second, Sowell’s conclusion is that many of the problems faced by modern day black communities are the result of cultural norms that have been passed down for generations, and not racist legacies of slavery. If any racism exists, Sowell argues, it is practiced by white liberals who keep black communities down by offering social services and support rather than allowing them to experience the natural consequences of their actions, which would spur them to improvement. Yet in all the pages devoted to supporting this hypothesis, Sowell never once mentions any systemic racism in our society after slavery.

Is his position that Jim Crow did not exist, or that it was not a racist system? What about mass incarceration of black people today? Leaving out any discussion of these and other parts of our history is a major omission. The result is an essay that is not the scholarly piece advertised, but a cheap underdeveloped opinion.
...more

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Jul 28, 2020 NinaB rated it it was amazing

Shelves: recommended, book-club, read-2020, top-2020

4.5*
I had heard about Mr Sowell before reading this book, but soon after I started it, questioned myself why I waited this long to read his works. He is a clear writer, straight to the point and explains his thesis well. He taught me new things and made me think differently of current events, history and the possible solutions to our current societal problems.

His well researched book explains the redneck culture and its ongoing influence to American society, more specifically to the black commun ...more

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Jan 13, 2010 Kevin Heldt rated it really liked it

Okay, this guy is a stud. I love the rare academic who will actually shoot straight with you. This was a collection of 6 refreshingly incisive essays that systematically debunked many of the pet beliefs and agendas of today's intelligentsia. ...more

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Jun 20, 2015 Thomas Achord rated it it was amazing

Shelves: politics, history, economics, culture

Excellent and eye-opening. Most discussion about race or slavery is too narrow and simplistic. They are much broader than a Eurocentric view would imagine. Sowell's research is wide and deep, his reasoning cool and exacting, his arguments compelling and, largely, unchallenged.

I found this review to curtail some of what Sowell has to say about blacks obtaining their cultural attitudes and actions from whites: http://www.vdare.com/articles/tom-sow...

Some important quotes:

"Discussions of slavery i ...more

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Nov 25, 2014 RubyNibs rated it it was amazing

Gobsmacked. Excellence that should grace every home, every school, every library. Empirical evidence on a wide range of history that follows a common theme: the Redneck attitudes that are keeping down urban Blacks, why they are weighing down Blacks, their origin (shockingly, the Scottish Borderlands, the Ulster area of N. Ireland, and Wales--typically, at the time, reckless, shiftless people too proud to work until they had to), and how to dispel them.

Dr. Thomas Sowell takes us on a gut-wrenchi ...more

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Feb 11, 2018 NormaCenva rated it it was amazing

Shelves: audible-co-uk, the-sleeper-must-awaken, classical-must-reads, research-for-book-writing, third-decade-favorites, audiobooks

This is an amazing book! I am saddened that I had no idea that this author even existed before picking up this book. Maybe he is not widely known because his opinions are "unpopular"? This book is not concerned with "feelings" or with pleasing the ego of the reader. It is a hard read and left me thinking and re-thinking a lot of my own stands on many issues. It can be now clearly seen how 3rd wave feminism is only harming and not helping. This book relies on facts, scholarly publications, resear ...more

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Jun 26, 2017 Brenda rated it really liked it

Too bad this book is unlikely ever to be required reading in American high schools or colleges. It's scholarly, thoughtful, objective - far from the superficial, agenda-driven treatment that's being handed out today. If you read "Under Our Skin" (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...), be sure to read this, too. Or skip that one and just read this one. ...more

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Jul 14, 2020 Brian rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2020

A friend recommended this book me seven years ago and I can’t account for my taking this long to take his advice. Sowell is the least-known national treasure we have in the U.S. His title essay is worth the price of the book.

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Apr 06, 2018 Wade Stotts rated it it was amazing

Shelves: economics, ethnicity, history-biography, politics

Wonderful. Essential.

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Nov 02, 2010 Void lon iXaarii rated it really liked it

I tend to follow experts in their fields... which often doesn't translate to other fields, as many people successful in one field turn out to be not that knowledgeable or skilled in another. Thomas Sowell is, for me, one of the few exceptions i know of. I Started reading his books because of his economics knowledge but i can so relate to his way of viewing the world that I can't stop following his books even when they're not directly in the field. Why? Because unlike many others he doesn't take ...more

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Sep 04, 2008 Danelley rated it it was amazing

Adam was telling me about this book, and about the amazing man that is Thomas Sowell. Read his bio -- he's led a very interesting life. It's interesting that many of the "undesirable" qualities of the South, e.g. working to feed the family when needed, rather than having a steady work ethic and income, may have come from original settlers from wilder areas like Ulstead County, Ireland, and Wales, and Northern Scotland, where many of my ancestors are from! (Back in the 17th-18th centuries, they w ...more

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Jul 11, 2018 Elena rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites, histories-of-people-events-things

Exellent argumentation and general tone. Typical Sowell, one of my favourite non-fiction authors.

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Apr 01, 2017 Chris Niessl rated it liked it

I initially wanted to read this book to gain a conservative economist's view on history, specifically on the 18th through 20th century, in order to broaden my beliefs not only racially, but also to try and understand a well though-out and articulated conservative perspective (Sowell himself would prefer the term 'libertarian' over 'black conservative') Sowell's analysis in each of the essays in his book is very broad, each one containing hundreds of citations. In each one I found that I could ap I initially wanted to read this book to gain a conservative economist's view on history, specifically on the 18th through 20th century, in order to broaden my beliefs not only racially, but also to try and understand a well though-out and articulated conservative perspective (Sowell himself would prefer the term 'libertarian' over 'black conservative') Sowell's analysis in each of the essays in his book is very broad, each one containing hundreds of citations. In each one I found that I could appreciate the conservative perspective on a variety of issues. At the same time, the book was highly readable, using both unambiguous terms while avoiding sociological or other research nomenclature that a layperson might not understand.

For example, in his first essay, he provides great historical background on the first cultures from the British Isles to come colonize the Americas. While the essay is not as in depth as the book "Albion's Seed" (Compare 60 some pages to 900) Sowell identifies that Southern blacks inherited the Scotts-Irish "Redneck" culture that predominates the Southeastern and mid-Atlantic states, and that the cultural attitudes of today can be traced back to similar "Honor-culture" issues that plagued whites in early American history (And even today, read "Hillbilly Elegy") and also existed back in Europe before then. Such culture was often hostile to the ideas of formal education, and over-reactive and violent to perceived slights. This ties in with his fifth essay on the history of black education and asks the question of the reader: Why did Dunbar High School have poorer academic performance amongst its black students after Brown v. Board of Education and Desegregation? Why were blacks, on average, gaining in prosperity from World War I up until the Vietnam war when state enforced segregation was becoming more draconian since reconstruction? As he claims in the preface of the book, "...There is not the slightest danger that there will be a shortage of solutions. On the contrary, an abundance of uniformed solutions has been one of our biggest social problems" His reasons for bringing this up, as he claims later in the book, is that affirmative action based policies have done little to help promote black excellence, as well as the fact that welfare policies that don't address the increase in broken black families will be ineffective at best, and further destructive at worst.

Sowell also admonishes current cultural-studies departments for their bias in covering the history of the institution of slavery. Specifically the lack of instruction in the institutions of the Ottoman Empire and Barbary coast, as well as the fact that the original efforts to destroy the institution came from abolitionists in the British Empire and United States. He also provides a counter-narrative that racism developed as a result of slavery. First, he explains that for a good portion of time free blacks lived in the South. The institutionalization of race in slavery didn't gain traction until religious revivalist movements sought to justify slavery against early abolitionist and democratic causes. Second, that many of the choices of the Founding fathers to retain their slaves stemmed not from their moral justification from it, but because they had to make careful political choices. For example, Jefferson only freed a fraction of his slaves, since the majority of them belonged to the "estate" that he inherited, and not necessarily to him. Because the estate still had outstanding mortgages, freeing the slaves would, in the most abhorring way, be devaluing the property collateral against the estate and would be means for the bank to claim default. Such facts are despicable today, but Sowell doesn't claim that such actions were moral, but necessarily pragmatic. Imagine if Jefferson had lost that estate. Would a Southern bank care for the integrity of the slave families of that estate? Jefferson vigorously advocated for preventing slavery for expanding into new states, and while unsuccessful, one can't imagine Jefferson could lobby if he was forced into a scandal amongst his fellow Virginians for freeing slaves.

While Sowell challenged and tempered my liberal political outlook, he was unable to fully convince me on several topics, not for my own biases, but because while well-sourced, the book is not comprehensive, or he hand-waves several topics away without providing a stronger argument in support of his views. For example, Sowell chides white liberals for supporting contemporary rap music: "The thuggish gutter words and brutal hoodlum lifestyle of 'gangster rap' musicians are not merely condoned but glorified by many white intellectuals- and 'understood' by others lacking the courage to take responsibility for siding with savagery." In doing so, he betrays his views and shares in the hypocrisy of other censorious busybodies of the 80s and 90s, for example conservatives in admonishing metal and rock music for "satanic anti-Christian" and "misogynistic" themes. Metal doesn't contribute to the lawlessness of its audience, so why would rap music do the same? Another example of Sowell's hand-waving is his omission of several key portions of European history between Czechs and Germans. He claims that the Czech mistreatment of Germans after WW I contributed to the rise of Nazism and had its roots in Czech "Identity-politics" from losses incurred during the Thirty Year's War. However, his glaring omission of the politics of the 1848 revolution: that Germans were actively trying to annex the *full* kingdom of Bohemia, the majority who identified ethnically and linguistically Czech, and not just its ethnic German enclaves, as well as active discrimination against Czech citizens (Václav Klemen) paints a more complex view of history than the one Sowell provides. While I understand why Sowell wanted to include an essay/chapter on the history of Germany, its especially ironic how ten years after the writing of this book, a good number of the issues Europe faces today can stem from the overreaching dominion of Germany and its politics in the EU. The inclusion of this chapter doesn't enhance his argument in his other essays, and its inclusion is dubious.

One last point, while Sowell does provide arguments and evidence against the benefits of Affirmative action, he does not any policy solutions, nor does he celebrate liberal policies that do have significant evidence of working. For example, he chides Social Security and civil rights era policies for harming blacks, but ignores the massive benefit they have had in reducing the poverty of the elderly. Thus he misses an opportunity to demonstrate how social security has some racist undertones, for example, with a fixed retirement age across race despite Blacks having a lower life expectancy on average, and thus Black men drawing less benefits. Highlighting this however, would show the benefits whites and thus a majority of citizens have received, from Social Security. Second, he doesn't provide much investigation into the Flynn Effect, where IQ and other standardized test scored have significantly increased over the last century, across all races. While he uses to Flynn effect to chide liberals for being against IQ-Race related research, he misses addressing the fundamental question: Why would IQ suddenly increase across all races. One theory that is gaining traction is the improved environmental regulations that have taken place across the country: (http://web.mit.edu/ckolstad/www/Newel...) The unleading of gasoline coincides well with the sharp jump of the Flynn effect as well as sharp decrease of violent crime from the 80s onward. This makes a compelling case that environmental regulation is desirable in order to address these kinds of issues, but such a viewpoint is absent from Sowell's analysis and libertarian perspective.

As a result of all these factors, I would rate 3/5. While well researched and written, I would have been inclined to give a 4, or possibly even a 5, if Sowell had omitted his German ethnography and other biases in the book. ...more

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About Thomas Sowell

Thomas Sowell

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Thomas Sowell is an American economist, social commentator, and author of dozens of books. He often writes from an economically laissez-faire perspective. He is currently a senior fellow of the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. In 1990, he won the Francis Boyer Award, presented by the American Enterprise Institute. In 2002 he was awarded the National Humanities Medal for prolific scholars Thomas Sowell is an American economist, social commentator, and author of dozens of books. He often writes from an economically laissez-faire perspective. He is currently a senior fellow of the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. In 1990, he won the Francis Boyer Award, presented by the American Enterprise Institute. In 2002 he was awarded the National Humanities Medal for prolific scholarship melding history, economics, and political science.

Sowell was born in North Carolina, where, he recounted in his autobiography, A Personal Odyssey, his encounters with Caucasians were so limited he didn't believe that "yellow" was a hair color. He moved to Harlem, New York City with his mother's sister (whom he believed was his mother); his father had died before he was born. Sowell went to Stuyvesant High School, but dropped out at 17 because of financial difficulties and a deteriorating home environment. He worked at various jobs to support himself, including in a machine shop and as a delivery man for Western Union. He applied to enter the Civil Service and was eventually accepted, moving to Washington DC. He was drafted in 1951, during the Korean War, and assigned to the US Marine Corps. Due to prior experience in photography, he worked in a photography unit.

After his discharge, Sowell passed the GED examination and enrolled at Howard University. He transfered to Harvard University, where he graduated magna cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics. He received a Master of Arts in Economics from Columbia University, and a Doctor of Philosophy in Economics from the University of Chicago. Sowell initially chose Columbia University because he wanted to study under George Stigler. After arriving at Columbia and learning that Stigler had moved to Chicago, he followed him there.

Sowell has taught Economics at Howard University, Cornell University, Brandeis University, and UCLA. Since 1980 he has been a Senior Fellow of the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, where he holds a fellowship named after Rose and Milton Friedman.

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Basic Economics: A Citizen's Guide to the Economy

A Conflict of Visions: Ideological Origins of Political Struggles

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“It takes no more research than a trip to almost any public library or college to show the incredibly lopsided coverage of slavery in the United States or in the Western Hemisphere, as compared to the meager writings on even larger number of Africans enslaved in the Islamic countries of the Middle East and North Africa, not to mention the vast numbers of Europeans also enslaved in centuries past in the Islamic world and within Europe itself. At least a million Europeans were enslaved by North African pirates alone from 1500 to 1800, and some Europeans slaves were still being sold on the auction blocks in the Egypt, years after the Emancipation Proclamation freed blacks in the United States.” — 39 likes

“The history of which peoples, nations, or civilizations have conquered or enslaved which other peoples, nations, or civilizations has been largely a history of who has been in a position to do so.” — 12 likes

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