Customer Reviews

Barbarians inside the Gates and Other Controversial Essays (HOOVER INST PRESS PUBLICATION)

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4 star:		(1)
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On most days Thomas Sowell's articles are the only thing worth reading in my local newspaper. In a time where most news is unenlightening fluff, Sowell preaches common sense and personal responsibility. This collection of writings is Sowell at his best, covering topics ranging from the death penalty to Clarence Thomas.

Anyone who is even slightly aware of Sowell's work knows his particular disdain for the education establishment. The articles on this topic are the best ones in the book, in my humble opinion. Sowell reveals the American educational establishment as the sick fraud....Sowell is unique in his criticism because he has kept plugging away on this topic for years while others drift in and out of the debate.

Sowell also throws lightening bolts at the leftist demagogues that he refers to as "the Anointed". These are the people in the media, educational establishment and the government that are constantly undermining the rights of everyone else in the country through such trendy ideas as safety, political correctness and a host of other ills...I did give this book four stars. This in no way reflects on the quality of the essays, which are excellent, but is due to the number of errors in the text...

Thomas Sowell is more than just a critical thinker: he has a penchant for expressing his ideas with a clarity with which it is difficult to argue. He uses that uncommon commodity known, for some strange reason, as "common sense."

Sowell points out`the ludicrous incongruities of the liberal "philosophy" in terms so plain and unvarnished that only one attempting a proctological examination on themselves could miss it.

An example: "The point of being a superpower is so that no one will attack you and require the sacrifice of more and more young Americans like those buried in this cemetery. We were attacked at Pearl Harbor because we were sitting ducks who had allowed our military forces to dwindle away until we had an army smaller than Portugal's--and not enough equipment even for this small force." Page 7.

Or: "Multiculturism is one of those affectations that people can indulge in when they are enjoying all the fruits of modern technology and can grandly disdain the processes that produced them. None of this would be anything more than another of the many foibles of the human race, except that the cult of multiculturism has become the new religion of our schools and colleges, contributing to the mushing of America. It has become part of the unexamined assumptions underlying public policy and even decisions in courts of law." Page 19.

Or: "Much of the current uproar about IQ differences between blacks and whites does not get down to the rock-bottom question: What is there to explain? The average score of blacks in IQ tests in the United States is about 85, compared to a national averge of 100. Is that unusual? No. It is not." He goes on to explain that various groups of various ancestries have had IQs of 85 at various times and places, and he names some of them, and says that the phenomenon is not peculiar to the United States, and he admits that he doesn't know why. Even American aoldiers of the First World War had lower IQs than our soldiers of the Second World War. Page 176.

This is a man to be reckoned with, and these essays are valuable for their insights, most of which effectively puncture widely and emotionally held ideas, especially those that are deemed "politically correct," and institutionalized unquestioned dogma of the liberal anointed who think they are qualified to tell the rest of us how to think and act.

Joseph (Joe) Pierre

author of Handguns and Freedom...their care and maintenance
and other books

Anyone familiar with Thomas Sowell's widely syndicated columnes will not be surprised by the abundant wisdom that permeates this chrestomathy. Politically Incorrect to the hilt, Sowell has an amazing ability to elevate common sense to an art form. Whether taking on the multiculturalists' drive to Balkanize America, environmental extremists, or self-mutilating corporations, his arguments are eloquent in their profound simplicity

While liberal bashaws certainly will not embrace his erudite dialectics, no reasonable person can dismiss his viewpoints. Even those who disagree with Sowell's observations will be challenged to rethink their positions if they approach his essays with an objective and discerning mind.

While I've read plenty of work by plenty of writers influencing my beliefs on one issue or another, Thomas Sowell's writing has had a much more profound influence on my thinking: it's changed the very way that I view the world around me. As America becomes more divided and less free, Thomas Sowell is one of the only places I can reliably turn for an interesting dissident voice. In this collection of remarkably succint and insightful essays, Sowell pokes at the foundations of the prevailing ideologies of the day until the whole house of cards comes tumbling down. Although he's typically assigned the simplistic label "conservative," Sowell's analyses go well beyond the tired, often irrelevant divide between the "left" and the "right." Sowell isn't trying to get elected or win any popularity contests, and he doesn't have an ideological axe to grind; he's just a guy with a great deal of respect for logic, truth, and the founding ideals of this country. Indeed, Sowell dispenses with the drivel spouted by politicians of both parties as he cuts through what he calls the "mush" that typically passes for informed debate these days. Sowell has written much about the self-satisfied "anointed" who hold so much power and shape so much of the debate in this country, and he launches a frontal assault in these essays against every bastion of their power. No one is spared from Sowell's disdain for our self-appointed betters: politicians, welfare statists, race hucksters, feminists, the media, the judiciary, and most of all the educational establishment that has sold generations of kids down the river in the name of feel-good "progressive" ideas. Although he typically writes with the utmost restraint, Sowell can be outrageous and sometimes even hilarious, as in this little nugget: "Liberals love to say things like, 'We're just asking everyone to pay their fair share'. But government is not about asking. It is about telling. The difference is fundamental. It is the difference between making love and being raped, between working for a living and being a slave." There are plenty more such penetrating insights to be found here, along with an avalanche of facts, to go along with Sowell's justified contempt at America's modern-day elites. If you read Thomas Sowell and you're not quickly converted to his way of thinking, well then, as someone once said, "You can't handle the truth!"

If you're familiar with Thomas Sowell's newspaper column or his earlier books, you'll love this collection of essays from one of the most remarkable thinkers of our time. As a former economist and professor, Mr. Sowell offers readers a rare perspective on social and political issues. For him, problems like "scarcity" and the "law of diminishing returns" don't stop when they reach the banks of the Potomac or the professor's lectern. Many readers will label the author as a conservative. I describe him as a man who understands how the world works and desperately wants to inject common sense into the public discourse. The author pulls no punches. He just tells it like it is. Where else will you read: "It is used to be said that taxes are the price we pay to live in a civilized society. Today, taxes are the price we pay so that politicians can buy the votes of those who are feeding at the public trough?" Not only will you be nodding your head with every bit of wisdom, you'll find yourself laughing with him at the stupidity of our national elites. No sacred cow of the political left escapes his wrath. As a reader, I couldn't consume this book fast enough. If you purchase this book too, you'll be overcome by a similar craving.

Thomas Sowell is one of the finest critical thinkers of our time. More than that, he is uniquely able to state his views in a manner that is both comprehensive and concise. Few authors are able to pack as much valuable analysis into each line as Thomas Sowell.

This latest collection of his provocative essays will challenge the presumptions and beliefs of many people, especially in America. Sowell has a special talent for slicing through fallacies, poor research, and "mushy" thinking, and getting to the truth in practically any controversy. He's logical, but at the same time he writes from a 'common sense' perspective that can be readily understood by everyone. Everyone except, perhaps, the "anointed ones."

Covering culture, economics, politics, law, race, and education, the essays in this book will challenge your understanding of the world, as well as your thoughts on how society should deal with the many issues it faces.

The book is a collection of his short articles, organized in the following categories; Social, Economic, Political, Legal, Racial, Education.

Sowell's logical and concise arguments hit like a hammer blow to those on the political left how tend to disagree with him.

The title of the book comes from the first essay in the book. The relevant line in the essay is:

"The Barbarians are not at the gates. They are inside the gates -and have academic tenure, judicial appointments, government grants and control of the movies, television and other media."

Rome didn't fall in a day. Events which caused the fall of the Roman Empire happened decades before Rome fell. Sowell gives us a warning on the future of the USA and some hope that society can improve.

..., says Sowell in this book and, really, he is not.

Sowell exercises with mastery and skillfully his favourite "hobby": bashing without mercy the anointed ones (leftists, in the peculiar sowellian vocabulary), giving no truces to their dogmas (lies) on the political, economical, social, racial and educational scenes, dismounting all them one by one.

"Barbarians inside the Gates" is an excellent work, from a leading figure of the movement against political correctness' intelectual dictatorship, constituting ammunition of the highest quality to be employed in the counter-cultural war on leftism.

Thomas Sowell writes about the most important issues facing the United States today. He is a brillant and insightful thinker who cuts through all the crap and sloppy ideas that the counter-culture has been pushing on us over the past several decades.

Dr. Sowell gives a rational argument for common sense in major issues of society, economic, political, legal, racial and educational.

I love this guy and plan to read more of his books. I even begun writing my legislators. Thomas, I hope you don't mind me using your ideas when I do write them.

Thanks again for putting together these essays that cut through all the cerebral mush.

Thank you Dr. Sowell for your piece of sanity in this insane world. It isn't that Dr. Sowell is some sort of wise sage, simply the honest way he handles the data when it's presented to him. The conclusions he puts forth in his columns and other books speak volumes towards his sound economic background. This is a great book and well worth the read!