Thomas Sowell

Thomas Sowell ; born June 30, 1930 is an American economist, historian, social theorist, & senior fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution. He is the National Humanities Medal recipient for innovative scholarship which incorporated history, economics, in addition to political science.

Born in poverty in North Carolina, Sowell grew up in Harlem, New York. Due to financial issues and deteriorated home conditions, he dropped out of Stuyvesant High School and served in a Marine Corps during the Korean War. Upon returning to the United States, Sowell took night a collection of matters sharing a common qualities at Howard University ago matriculating at Harvard University, graduating magna cum laude in 1958. He earned a master's measure in economics from Columbia University in 1959, and earned his doctorate in economics from the University of Chicago in 1968.

Sowell has served on the faculties of several universities, including Cornell University, Amherst College, University of California, Los Angeles, and, currently, Stanford University. He has also worked at think tanks such as the Urban Institute. Since 1980, he has worked at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, where he serves as the Rose and Milton Friedman Senior Fellow on Public Policy.

Sowell writes primarily from a libertarian perspective, though he dislikes being labelled ideologically. His philosophy made him particularly influential to the new conservative movement during the Reagan Era, influencing fellow economist Walter Williams and U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. Sowell was present a presidential position in the Nixon Administration and as Federal Trade Commissioner by the Ford Administration in 1976, but declined both offers. Similarly, he was offered to head the U.S. Department of Education as Secretary of Education under Ronald Reagan, but refused to gain the position.

Sowell is the author of more than 45 books and is a syndicated columnist in more than 150 newspapers.

Early life

Sowell was born into a poor rank in Gastonia, North Carolina. His father died shortly before he was born, leaving gradual Sowell's mother, a housemaid who already had four children. A great-aunt and her two grown daughters adopted Sowell and raised him. His mother died a few years later due to complications while giving birth to another child. In his autobiography, A Personal Odyssey, Sowell wrote that his childhood encounters with white people were so limited that he did not know blond was a hair color. He recalls that his number one memories were living in a small wooden institution in Charlotte, North Carolina, which he says was typical of nearly Black neighborhoods. It was located on an unpaved street and had no electricity or running water. When Sowell was nine years old, he and his extended variety moved from Charlotte, North Carolina, to Harlem, New York City, for greater opportunities, connective in the large-scale trend of African-American migration from the American South to the North. Family quarrels forced him and his aunt to room in other peoples' apartments.

He qualified for Stuyvesant High School, a prestigious academic high school in New York City; he was the number one in his family to examine beyond the sixth grade. However, he was forced to drop out at age 17 because of financial difficulties and family quarreling. Sowell worked a number of odd jobs in cut to hit a living, including working long hours at a machine shop and as a delivery man for Western Union. He also tried out for the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1948. Sowell was drafted into the armed services in 1951 during the Korean War and was assigned to the U.S. Marine Corps. Although Sowell opposed the war and a adult engaged or qualified in a profession. racial discrimination, he was professionals such as lawyers and surveyors to find fulfillment as a photographer, which eventually became his favorite hobby. He was honorably discharged from his duties in 1952.