Happy 90th Birthday, Thomas Sowell
Our nation turns its lonely eyes to you
![https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JyufeHJlodE](https://c3.legalinsurrection.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Happy-90th-Birthday-Thomas-Sowell-e1593558425209.png)
Today is Thomas Sowell’s 90th birthday, and I want to wish him a very happy one.
Sowell may also be happy today that he’s been retired for several years, because chronicling our current mess is not fun, although I would dearly love to read or hear what he has to say about it. For many decades, Sowell was one of the most brilliant, clearest, no-nonsense voices in America, although it was mostly the right who listened to him.
Thomas Sowell was also the writer who influenced me most during my political change. Until I read his books about seventeen years ago (I think the first one I encountered may have been The Vision of the Anointed, but another extremely important one for me was The Quest for Cosmic Justice), I just had a vague and growing dissatisfaction with the left, the Democrats, and especially the press. But I had no framework in which to place those perceptions, no overview that made sense of them.
Sowell provided that. I had no sooner read a few pages of his thoughts when I breathed a sigh of relief. At last! Someone who made sense. And to think, he’d already been writing for many years at that point and I’d never before heard of him.
I’ve read many of his books since, including his autobiography A Personal Odyssey. Sowell is what used to be called a rugged individualist. He went his own way, and didn’t suffer fools gladly. His work should be known by so many more people than it is. I hope he’s doing well, and I want to thank him from the bottom of my heart.
Here’s some vintage Sowell from 1995. Enjoy:
[Neo is a writer with degrees in law and family therapy, who blogs at the new neo.]
[ADDENDUM: On the occasion of his 90th birthday, Sowell has released a new book entitled Charter Schools and Their Enemies. He still seems to be going strong.]
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Comments
A man of rare intelligence and common sense. Happy birthday, Mr. Sowell, and thank you for your work.
A great intellect. Happy birthday Dr. Sowell!
Happy Birthday Dr. Sowell! His interviews, to to mention his books, on Uncommon Knowledge are incredible. Truly a national treasure.
He needs to be widely read and listened to!
Please share his books/articles/videos with others.
Happy birthday – an incredible intellect
“Our nation turns its lonely eyes to you”. Boy, that’s the truth. Several years ago I bought his book “Dismantling America” at a hippy book story. The cashier really gave me the stink eye.
Makes me want to go out and buy the book in person rather than online!
Happy Birthday, Dr. Sowell! I look forward to reading–and being inspired by–more of your work.
Wonder if Mr. Sowell is on Twitter.
He might to like this.
TheLeoTerrell
@
If the presidential election was held today I would vote for #DonaldTrump. America Is more important than party loyalty.
Civil Rights Attorney Leo Terrell: If Election Were Today, I’d Vote For Trump
https://www.weaselzippers.us/451567-civil-rights-attorney-leo-terrell-if-election-were-today-id-vote-for-trump/
Dr. Sowell is a national treasure. When is POTUS going to award him the Presidential Medal of Freedom? Such an award is well-deserved and long overdue.
That’s a wonderful idea!
It would put him in the national spotlight, perhaps enlightening some of those millennials.
Always one of my favorite conservatives since first I read his columns many, many years ago.
I happen to be in the middle of reading A Conflict of Visions.
The first book of his I read was Ethnic America which just blew my mind away. His irrefutable demonstration of the inability of discrimination–absent government coercion–to impact economic outcome for different groups and subgroups stays with me to this day.
Happy Birthday, Dr. Sowell!!
Rush Limbaugh is responsible for turning our family on to your great intellect. I wish I could go back and listen to some of the episodes that you filled in for him.
The Vision of the Anointed is one of my all time favorite books. I refer to it often and give as a gift.
Thank you for all you’ve shared, Dr Sowell
Cheers
dubito ergo cogito
cogito ergo sum
He’s been doing a lot of photography in his “retirement”… there are many amazing shots on his Google Photos album which is public.
https://www.tsowell.com/photos_link.html