Ever Wonder Why? and Other Controversial Essays

Publication Date: November 2006

Publisher: Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace

Author(s): Thomas Sowell

Research Area: Economics; Politics

Keywords: Political Science; Economics

Type: Book

Coverage: United States

Abstract:

Thomas Sowell takes on a range of legal, social, racial, educational, and economic issues - along with "the culture wars" - in this latest collection of his controversial, never boring, always thought-provoking essays. From "gun control myths" to "mealy mouth media" to "free lunch medicine," Sowell gets to the heart of the matters we all care about with his characteristically unswerving candor.

Sowell skewers the "mealy mouth media" that calls terrorists "insurgents" and rioters "demonstrators." He reveals how "the idiocy of relevance" in learning has been particularly destructive in the education of minority students at all levels. He explains how a free market and a strict construction of the 14th Amendment would never have permitted the laws that asked Rosa Parks to give up her seat to a white man. And he clarifies the confusion between equal opportunity and equal results that resides behind many kinds of "spoiled brat politics."

With Ever Wonder Why? - drawn from the best of his popular syndicated newspaper columns - Sowell once again takes dead aim at the self-righteous and self-important forces in government, media, education, and other areas of our society, offering the thoughtful perceptions, commonsense insights, and straightforward honesty we have come to expect from one of conservatism's most articulate voices.