Ever Wonder Why? and Other Controversial Essays

"The desire of individuals and groups to puff themselves up by imposing their vision on other people is a recurring theme in the culture wars" 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. Thomas Sowell is the Rose and Milton Friedman Senior Fellow on Public Policy at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. Among his published works are Basic Economics, Late Talking Children, and Race and Culture. He has also published in both academic journals and the popular media including Newsweek, Forbes, the Wall Street Journal, and 150 newspapers that carry his nationally syndicated column.

Full-text PDF versions of each chapter can be accessed below by clicking on the desired chapter title. (PDF files require Adobe Reader. If you do not already have this software installed, click here to download it for free at the Adobe web site.)Copyright ©2006 by the Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission of the publisher.

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