BY Thomas Sowell

Utopia Is Overrated (Hoover Digest 2010 No. 1)
In accepting something short of perfection, we learn to accept our freedom. By Thomas Sowell.

Sadder but Wiser (Hoover Digest 2009 No. 3)
For the “victims” of the foreclosures, an overdue case of live and learn. By Thomas Sowell.

Burdens of Identity (Hoover Digest 2009 No. 1)

What it is and why there’s too much of it. By Thomas Sowell.

What Price Ignorance?*

Hugo Chávez of Venezuela seems surprised that price controls don’t work. They never do. By Thomas Sowell.

Crime and Non-Punishment* (Hoover Digest 2008 No. 2)

A crook’s best friend? The usual platitudes about the “root causes” of crime. By Thomas Sowell.

Moral Paralysis* (Hoover Digest 2008 No. 1)
Western Europe failed to stop Germany seven decades ago. Will we fail to stop Iran today? By Thomas Sowell.

Fatal Falsehoods* (Hoover Digest 2007 No. 4)
The recent attempt at immigration reform? Thomas Sowell bids it good riddance.

Unaffordable* (Hoover Digest 2007 No. 3)
What do price controls produce? Expensive housing and soaring medical costs. By Thomas Sowell.

Dishonoring the Vows* (Hoover Digest 2007 No. 2)
Marriage is alive and well—no thanks to distorted reporting on the ranks of the “never married.” By Thomas Sowell.

“The World’s Wealth” and Nonsense* (Hoover Digest 2007 No. 1)
Redistribute “the world’s wealth”? Nonsense. The world doesn’t produce wealth, individuals do—and it belongs to them. By Thomas Sowell.

Let the Asian Students Succeed* (Hoover Digest 2007 No. 1)
A hundred years ago, Chinese and Japanese immigration to the United States, especially to California, gave rise to talk of a “yellow peril.” Today’s hand-wringing about “too many Asians” at elite universities echoes that racist nonsense. By Thomas Sowell.

Drifting toward the Brink (Hoover Digest 2006 No. 4)
Once Iran and North Korea develop nuclear weapons, it’s only a matter of time before international terrorist organizations get their hands on them. Thomas Sowell on dark days ahead.

Freedom Man (Hoover Digest 2006 No. 4)
Thomas Sowell

The Phony Cease-Fire (Hoover Digest 2006 No. 4)
The cease-fire in Lebanon handcuffs Israel while letting Hezbollah reload. Will the United Nations never learn? By Thomas Sowell.

Memories . . . of the Way We Weren't* (Hoover Digest 2006 No. 3)
Glory days: Why liberals can't let go of their self-serving myths about the sixties. By Thomas Sowell.

The Cure for Poverty? Wealth* (Hoover Digest 2006 No. 2)
If creating wealth is the best way to lift people out of poverty, why is the left so uninterested? Thomas Sowell explains.

The High Price of Oil—and of Demagoguery (Hoover Digest 2006 No. 1)
Big Oil may be an easy target for politicians, but every investigation into high gas prices turns up a single culprit—supply and demand. Go figure. By Thomas Sowell.

Is Anti-Semitism Generic? (Hoover Digest 2005 No. 3)
What do Jews have in common with Armenians, Ibos, and Marwaris? An historically similar pattern of economic and social roles—and of persecution. By Thomas Sowell.

Think Rushmore (Hoover Digest 2005 No. 1)
The Bush administration faces challenges and dangers of a kind that few other administrations in all our history have ever had to face. But these historic challenges and dangers also represent historic opportunities. By Thomas Sowell.

Affirmative Action around the World (Hoover Digest 2004 No. 4)
Thomas Sowell recently concluded a study of affirmative action programs around the world, from India and Malaysia to Nigeria and the United States. His findings? Such programs have at best a negligible impact on the groups they are intended to assist.

Low Taxes Do What? (Hoover Digest 2004 No. 2)
The high cost of economic illiteracy. By Hoover fellow Thomas Sowell.

The New Welfare Queens (Hoover Digest 2002 No. 3)
Are transfers of wealth to Third World governments really an aid to economic development? Hoover fellow Thomas Sowell says no and explains why “foreign aid” is more often foreign hindrance.

W. Glenn Campbell (1924–2001) (Hoover Digest 2002 No. 1)
W. Glenn Campbell served as director of the Hoover Institution, a position for which he was selected by President Herbert Hoover himself, from 1960 until his retirement in 1989. During those three decades Campbell transformed the Institution. He expanded its archives, made it a home for dozens of scholars of the first rank, and brought all its resources to bear on the struggle for individual liberty here at home and throughout the world. Campbell, who died of a heart attack on November 24, is survived by his wife of 55 years, Hoover fellow Rita Ricardo-Campbell, by his three daughters, by his four grandchildren—and by the fellows, employees, supporters, and friends of the Hoover Institution itself, who owe him an incalculable debt. Thomas Sowell reflects on the life of a scholar, a fighter, and a patriot.

A Personal Odyssey (Hoover Digest 2001 No. 2)
In this excerpt from his new book, Hoover fellow Thomas Sowell reflects on his early years. A memoir by the man the Washington Post recently called "our most valuable public intellectual."

Lessons Unlearned (Hoover Digest 2000 No. 4)
Americans may pay lip service to the Constitution, but all too often they’re willing to sidestep the document in order to achieve short-sighted political agendas. Hoover fellow Thomas Sowell explores a dangerous trend.

When Fairness Is Unjust (Hoover Digest 2000 No. 3)
In an attempt to "level the playing field," education bureaucrats are lowering standards for minority students. The result? The bureaucrats are dooming minority students to lives of missed opportunities. By Hoover fellow Thomas Sowell.

The Quest for Cosmic Justice (Hoover Digest 2000 No. 1)
If we could create the universe from scratch, we’d all make sure that no one ever suffered misfortunes or disadvantages. The problem is that we don’t get to create the universe from scratch. Hoover fellow Thomas Sowell argues that the quest for cosmic justice is ultimately at odds with the administration of true justice.

The Day Cornell Died (Hoover Digest 1999 No. 4)
As gun-wielding black students seized control of a campus building in April 1969, Cornell University descended into anarchy. An account thirty years later by Hoover fellow Thomas Sowell, who was teaching at Cornell at the time.

What Trust Fund? (Hoover Digest 1999 No. 4)
Hoover fellow Thomas Sowell exposes the accounting sleight-of-hand known as the Social Security trust fund.

And Now, The Good News (Hoover Digest 1999 No. 3)
As the millennium approaches, Hoover fellow Thomas Sowell finds a few reasons for optimism.

Racial Quotas in College Admissions: A Critique of the Bowen and Bok Study (Hoover Digest 1999 No. 3)
In a new statistical analysis, two former Ivy League presidents argue that racial preferences in college admissions are good for both minorities and society at large. Examining the analysis, however, Hoover fellow Thomas Sowell has discovered that the numbers don’t add up.

Black History Lesson (Hoover Digest 1999 No. 2)
Hoover fellow Thomas Sowell on a generation of policies that have done black Americans far more harm than good.

How Black Leaders Are Leading Black Americans Astray (Hoover Digest 1999 No. 1)
Black leaders are less interested in leading black Americans than in “extracting what they can from white people.” An essay by Hoover fellow Thomas Sowell.

Culture and Equality (Hoover Digest 1998 No. 4)
What accounts for the enormous disparities in economic, social, and political development among nations and peoples? Not race or genes—but culture. Hoover fellow Thomas Sowell reflects on the findings of his masterwork, the trilogy made up of the volumes Race and Culture, Migrations and Cultures, and Conquests and Cultures.

Who Says the Globe Is Warming? (Hoover Digest 1998 No. 2)
Hoover fellow Thomas Sowell notes that the central assumption on which the entire debate over global warming is based—that the globe is growing warmer as a result of human activity—is utterly unproved.

At the University of California, the Sky Has Not Fallen (Hoover Digest 1998 No. 1)
The regents of the University of California voted in 1995 to end affirmative action on all nine UC campuses. Hoover fellow Thomas Sowell has looked at the results, and he concludes that the educational climate for minorities has gotten better, not worse.

We're All Fat Cats Now (Hoover Digest 1998 No. 1)
You may not have made the Forbes 400, but there's still a good chance the government thinks you're rich. By Hoover fellow Thomas Sowell.

A Black Man Confronts Africa (Hoover Digest 1997 No. 4)
Hoover fellow Thomas Sowell examines a new book, Out of America: A Black Man Confronts Africa. The book is honest, Sowell finds, a quality that by itself is enough to render the volume "almost shocking."

Supply-Side Politics* (Hoover Digest 1997 No. 4)
If you want to understand politics, argues Hoover fellow Thomas Sowell, look at the supply side--the kinds of people who make politics their career. It's the candidates, stupid.

Brainwashing the Children* (Hoover Digest 1997 No. 3)
Grade-schoolers used to be assigned themes such as "What I Did on My Summer Vacation." Now they get themes such as "How God Messed Up." What's happening in our public schools? Hoover fellow Thomas Sowell has a name for it: brainwashing.

Pyramid Scheme* (Hoover Digest 1997 No. 3)
Social Security has been "a hoax since day one." By Hoover fellow Thomas Sowell.

Cosmic Justice and Human Reality* (Hoover Digest 1997 No. 2)
Hoover fellow Thomas Sowell examines the very concept of equality, concluding that it is "one of the crucial far-fetched ideas of our time." Sowell at his most analytically acute-and politically incorrect.

Why I Gave Up Marxism* (Hoover Digest 1997 No. 2)
Hoover fellow Thomas Sowell began his intellectual career as a disciple of Karl Marx. What changed his mind? Read on. A slice of the essential Sowell.

Cultures Aren't Equal* (Hoover Digest 1997 No. 1)
In his latest book, Migrations and Cultures, Hoover fellow Thomas Sowell makes the politically incorrect assertion that some cultures are better than others. In this interview, he does it again.

Drive A Stake Through It* (Hoover Digest 1997 No. 1)
The passage of California's Proposition 209 has outlawed affirmative action programs in California's state government and made the status of affirmative action programs everywhere one of the most pressing issues of the day. Here Hoover fellow Thomas Sowell argues that there is precisely one way to deal with affirmative action. End it.

Is This the Year?* (Hoover Digest 1996 No. 2)
Hoover fellow Thomas Sowell surveys challenges to affirmative action now taking place throughout the country. "Neither in courts of law nor in the political process can affirmative action stand on its merits."

History and Culture (Hoover Digest 1996 No. 1)
Hoover fellow Thomas Sowell offers a brilliant meditation on the grand theme of his new book, Migrations and Culture, and indeed of much of his life's work, history as "an anchor in reality."