Customer Reviews

A Personal Odyssey

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1 star:		(1)

 

 

I genuinely enjoyed this autobiography. Sowell is a scholar whose works I've admired for twenty years. I was pleased to learn, in the course of reading this book, that my favorite of Sowell's books - Knowledge and Decisions - is among his favorites of his own works.

All that this book reveals about Sowell is consistent with what I'd previously known of him - for example, that he's uncompromising, crusty, and wholly unafraid to speak what he believes to be the truth. But the book puts interesting bulk on my previously thin knowledge of the man, his background, and his experiences.

Nothing I learned about him from this book shocked me, although I didn't realize just how many scholarly institutions Sowell has been associated with. Nor did I realize that Sowell's well-known disdain for the modern academy dates back to his earliest years in college. He did not, contrary to my previous assumption, grow disgruntled with academic life only in the 1970s.

True to lifelong form, Sowell did not write this book in an effort to win hugs and kisses. As this book makes quite clear, he's obviously not a huggable guy, and nor does he care to be. But he is a genuinely courageous man of integrity, in addition to being a fine scholar.

For years I had the final lines of his Knowledge and Decisions taped to my office door. They nicely capture a principal theme of his policy works: "Freedom is not simply the right of intellectuals to circulate their merchandise. It is, above all, the right of ordinary people to find elbow room for themselves and a refuge from the rampaging presumptions of their `betters.'"

Bravo for Thomas Sowell! May he live and work for many decades to come.

I have recently been interested in reading more of Thomas Sowell's books, having just finished his eye-opening "Inside American Education (1993)" before reading this one. Having read his autobiography, I now have a better appreciation for this man - his love of scholar, intellectual excellence, and most importantly, the truth.

Although this entire book is a must-read, I would like to touch on a couple of areas therein that really got my attention. One was Sowell's view on race-based affirmative action. From the very beginning Sowell saw the inherent flaws in this policy, particularly in college admissions. Granting academically underqualified and underprepared minority students to elite and academically intensive universities all in the name of "equality" was, as Sowell saw early on, basically a case of putting students in academic settings there they were sure to fail. It was a recipe for disaster from the outset. In particularly, he saw many college and university administrators bypassing the most qualified minority students in favor of the most ideologically and politically "pro-black" younsters who were just not prepared for the rigors of, say, a Cornell University, where Sowell taught for a time. He adamantly spoke out against this time and again, but to no avail.

Which brings me to another aspect of Sowell's life and personality that appealed to me: He was not afraid to question or challenge authority. True, he made many an enemy as a result, but this didn't shake him. In fact, as he points out, the thing that hurts people the most is the truth. He was not afraid to tell the truth, whether anyone like it or not.

Thomas Sowell is one of the greatest intellectual minds of our time. I highly recommend this book.

The beauty of Dr. Sowell's life as chronicled in the book is its witness to the fact that clear, honest thinking puts one in a minority, regardless of race or class or "station" in life, and that ultimately people come around to respect you for it and you can accomplish so much if you stay that course.

So many times Dr. Sowell came to a place where the stated mission was later found contrary to the real priorities of his superiors, who thwarted so many of his efforts to accomplish the stated mission. When he would finally corner them into admitting their ulterior motives and obstructionism, they had the choice of changing policies or accepting his resignation. Few people have resigned from so many places, and fewer still were later sought by the same places with promises that, really, it will be different this time.

It is also wonderful to behold someone who thinks like an economist virtually ALL THE TIME. He asks, why should blacks spend any energy protesting against a fifth-rate school for not admitting them? Especially when the best schools WERE admitting them? Can not that energy be better used elsewhere? Good questions. This kind of thinking is so prevalent in the book it inspires one to emulate it as a matter of lifestyle.

True, this is not a tell-all, and some things are left mysteries (like why exactly he parted with his unnamed first wife). Perhaps some such things are best left unanswered. After all, we are talking about DR. Thomas Sowell, not MR. Geraldo Rivera. I think we learned enough to understand the man and allow him to keep his dignity, and yes, respect the privacy of the other players, guilty or not.

This is a compelling story which is not easily put down once started.

I ordered this memoir immediately because I have been a big fan of Sowell's books on economics, politics and race. I was especially interested in his "odyssey" from a Marxist to a free-market economist. Tragically, he fails to bear his soul on this and many other critical issues. If you think this book is about ideas and philosophy, and how they changed over time, think again. You never find out! It is more a series of anecdotes in his childhood and adult life--growing up in Harlem, joining the Marines, going to school at Howard, Harvard, Chicago, teaching at Cornell, UCLA, working at AT&T, the Urban Institute, and finally researching and writing at Hoover. He does spend a great deal of time writing about race relations, why he has been accused of being a recluse since the Reagan era, his success in getting his son to start speaking after age 4, and some insights on his divorce, but if you want to know WHY he opposed the Vietnam War, disagreed with Chicago professor George Stigler on Say's Law, or abandoned Marxism in favor of the free-market economics of Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman, you will be disappointed. I did enjoy his short encounters with famous economists Milton Friedman, George Stigler, and Kenneth Arrow, but he could have said a lot more. Let me give you one example of my frustration: On pp. 276-77, Sowell talks about a quotation from black Air Force General Chappy James that then California Governor Ronald Reagan was especially fond of. Sowell disliked the quote--but never tells us what the quote is! One final annoying drawback: Sowell's autobiography has no index! Grrrrr.

Because Thomas Sowell is one of the great intellectuals of the 20th century, I felt compelled to read his autobiography. I'm not suggesting that I wanted to read it, I felt compelled to do so. I've always admired Sowell's positions (this is not to say that I agree with him) and have suggested that my minority students use him as a role model. After reading his autobiography, I realize that thinking this way was a mistake. Sowell must be a role model for all students (regardless or race) and for all professors. Several aspects of this book struck a cord within me.

First although I always admired Sowell, but I never suspected that he had anything that came close to what I would call a sense of humor. He never smiles during a TV interview (understandable after reading his book). His writing is always scholarly and emotionally detached. However, the pranks he pulled while a Marine were hilarious and made me laugh aloud. It wasn't what I was expecting of Sowell. Second, much of what I learned about him on the TV news was false. Within the pages of this book, I was quite shocked to read about his political and economic positions during the Reagan administration. News reports were outrageously inaccurate. I always pictured him as a "Black Republican." In reality, he never fit into that category. At best, he could be described as a libertarian. More accurately, he ignores ideology and selects a position that includes some empirical support. The bottom line is: Sowell's perspective is thoughtful and he embraces positions that are "right" rather than popular. He has never followed the path of least resistance except for one possible exception.

I find only one sour note in the entire book. While working for US Government, he was confronted with two conflicting theories regarding wage control for sugar manufacturing in Puerto Rico. He was the only economist in the department that conceptualized a research design to resolve the theoretical conflict. Because of some bureaucratic agendas within our government, he was unable to acquire the data. The theory was never tested and this saddens me. It is uncharacteristic of Sowell to surrender so easily. Based on the rest of his autobiography, I am quite surprised that he never returned to the issue. I'm sure he could get grant funding for this unfinished business.

This is a delightful book. It is humorous and insightful. Sowell sees himself as unassuming. The best single word to describe him is courageous. I wish I read this book sooner. It is quite inspiring.

This is Sowell's personal memoir. It goes from his childhood up to the present. Some of the stories from his childhood were funny. Once he fell asleep in church and woke to find his head in the lap of a female relative. He was angry that a girl would hold his head in her lap as a baby and punched her. He grew up in poverty in the South when black folks were still on the fringes of society. As a kid he visited the home of some white folks, for the first time saw the taps for both hot water and cold water, and thought that the "rich" people "drank a lot of water" because they had two taps. He did not even know that blond was a possible color for hair until he was older. His family moved to New York City when he was still a child. When he enrolled in the schools, he had to fight the Southern stereotypes because everyone knew that "Southern kids were dumb." He got into several fights. Once, he kicked a teacher in the stomach with all his might after an argument, sending the teacher reeling. He eventually got into some of the elite high schools in New York, but this academic career was cut short because his family gave him trouble for studying too hard - the typical rising peoples that do not understand the "new" methods for those who seek a good education. He was virtually forced to move out on his own and could not finish in the elite school. He worked in a machine shop for a time. The government then drafted him in to the Marines. He spent some time there and developed some skills in photography. After he got out of the Marines, he went on to a small college, then on to Harvard, graduating with honor.

If I could sum up Mr. Sowell in a few words, it would be "tough guy." This guy had a reputation for not compromising. He turned down several positions because some were token positions for Negroes. He was not afraid of anything seemingly. When he taught at colleges, it was his way or the highway. He never gave students any slack for lame excuses on grades and schoolwork. If his superiors did not allow him to do his job correctly, he quit and went elsewhere. When superiors attempted to undermine his authority, he resigned or forced them to mend their wicked ways.

He thought, as I do, that much of the so-called civil rights movement was useless and counter productive. He favored lifting the restrictions such as the Jim Crow laws, but anything that forced "integration," "affirmative action" or any other sacred cow to the movement was misguided. He thought that after the lifting of only those bad laws, Negro leaders should focus on education and increasing job skills for economic advancement. Looking back, he was right and the Negro leaders were wrong, and he has the facts to prove it. Many of the leaders assumed that after the lifting of the restrictions, Negroes would rise fast economically without anything else. Sowell knew that they were wrong and that fundamental change required attitude changes toward both work and education. In despair that the Negroes as a whole did not raise fast enough, leaders started making excuses for the stagnation such as "racism," and other such nonsense. Sowell gave them a dose of the painful truth, and they did not want to hear it for the most part.

Many people thought he was a "conservative Republican." However, he was not a member of either party in later years when the mass media made these claims. For the most part, he is simply a tough, straight, fact-driven scholar who finds the truth and reports it without any thought of the social consequences. This is good. Whether writing about race, government, economics, or anything, he simple reports it straight without any ideological slanting or filtering.

I highly recommend this to anyone interested in the man behind the great books. He does not bore the reader with things like his love life and such. I think that intelligent Negroes can look upon the life of this great man and see that greatness is possible to that race that knows too much of despair and broken dreams. Sowell rose from poverty to the life of a towering scholar though hard work and hard study. This book inspires.

This is a very human account of one man's rise from the streets of Harlem to a distinguished role in American intellectual life. Unlike most of our "experts" on social and political subjects, Sowell has a advanced degree from the school of hard knocks to go with his Phd in economics. In this autobiographical memoir he writes warmly but without sentimentality of his upbringing in a poor black family. Something of a brawler when young, once sent to a home for wayward boys, a card shark in his Marine Corps barracks, Sowell was no saint but ultimately he imposed upon himself an iron selfdiscipline to overcome the handicaps of discrimination and a spotty early education.

When he was six Tom Sowell learned about discrimiation. He was playing innocently with a little white girl when his foster mother admonished him: Keep this up and you headed for the gallows. When he was in the Marine Corps he was sometimes refused service in southern restaurants.The cards may have been stacked against him but Sowell made up his mind that he wasn't going to let that become an excuse for failure. Labelled as a conservative for his opposition to affirmative action, Sowell is more accurately described as someone who thinks for himself and buys no dogma. To learn more about his ideas you will have to read his earlier books, masterpieces like "A Conflict of Visions" or "The Quest for Cosmic Justice". In "Odyssey" you get the experiences that helped shape these ideas.

Even if you disagree with Sowell's ideas, or perhaps especially if you do, you should read this book if you want togain a better understanding of the background of today's debate about race.

It will be no surprise to anyone familiar with Thomas Sowell's political views, as well as his fierce commitment to academic integrity, that he experienced numerous scrapes with administrators and students during the decades in which he taught economics at various universities. Convinced that he could no longer usefully serve the corrupt establishment that had swallowed higher education by the seventies, Sowell left the teaching profession for a fellowship with the much-revered Hoover Institute. In a very short time he became one of the most well-known economists in America and was even rumored to be in line for a job with the Reagan administration. However, he was never actually offered such a job. Instead, he continued to write brilliantly and help shape the nation's intellectual and political outlooks.

As a black man who bucks the conventional civil rights "wisdom," Sowell has been a lightning rod over the years for those hostile to the idea that black people can think independently of the group. His willingness to dissent from the party line indicates a courage that few in the public sphere emulate. His story only serves to reinforce his integrity and demonstrates his unwavering belief in himself and his principles. Despite a humble background and a life that included many obstacles to success, he was able to get the most out of himself while winning a measure of respect that few in academia or politics ever enjoy.

Like all autobiographies, "A Personal Odyssey" is extremely one-sided. Therefore, it is often difficult to distinguish between Sowell's recollection of an event and the truth. According to him, he was never personally responsible for his run-ins with fellow university staff or students; the usual culprits were the capitulation of administrators and the laziness of students. A thoughtful reader, of course, might wonder if Sowell's own stubborness played a role in many of these confrontations. He himself would likely admit that he is not the easiest person to get along with, like many who are uncompromising on certain principles. Certainly, readers can't expect a person to have a balanced or unbiased view of himself. So the book does not suffer from the author's one-sided account.

The reason this book does not rate 5 stars is that the author only gives us minimal information about how he came to hold his opinions on political, cultural, and economic matters. Like many partisans of the right, Sowell once subscribed to socialism. In fact, in his younger days he was a full-blown Marxist, as he recounts in the book. Unfortunately, he gives little explanation for his move to the conservative/libertarian side of the spectrum. He tells his readers that certain events caused him to change his mind, but he doesn't offer much detail on the specific events that influenced this transformation or why they had the impact they had. A more lucid discussion of his political conversion would be much appreciated.

Though "A Personal Odyssey" suffers from insufficient detail on the author's intellectual journey from left to right, it is a very enjoyable piece nonetheless. Filled with Sowell's characteristic wisdom and good sense, it also displays his tremendous wit. Some of the funniest moments are when he challenges the thought process of his radical black friend Al. Sowell's story makes for a great and quick read. It was so entertaining that my mother practically read the whole book in one flight to England. Highly recommended, regardless of one's political views.

Thomas Sowell has led a remarkable life. To come as far as he has after such inauspicious beginnings makes his triumph all the greater. Frankly, if this life were written as fiction I would have criticized the story for putting too many roadblocks, false starts, and squandered opportunities in the protagonist's path to success. Frankly, I find it hard to believe someone could come so far with what amounts to an amazingly late start down the path to an academic career. However, reality has a way of confounding our expectations and this is the real life story of a well-known man whom many of us admire greatly

It isn't just that he has accomplished a great deal in his life from difficult beginnings. While such a story is always heartening, there are many examples of overcoming adversity. This is a story about a life of high academic achievement that almost comes out of nowhere. Yes, he had some foundation laid when he was a child, but it was more that he had a few accidental years of good primary education. Everything else about his life was driving him away from building on any education he happened to glean along the way. He made some efforts to continue his education as an adult, but during his critical years of adolescence he left school without graduating and even his later first attempts at college were not glowing successes.

Thankfully, for us (for me), he eventually did find his way to academic success. The story of his teaching career is another tale of success found in a sequence of unlikely events.

Dr. Sowell is a much different personality than I would have predicted, and certainly his absolutely uncompromising positions on certain things are important to his sense of self and integrity. However, I must admit, that my life has taught me some different lessons about compromise as accommodation versus compromise as abandonment of principal although I admit there comes a fine line that is easy to cross. But sometimes "personal integrity" is really just a mask for a rigid indifference to others that creates its own problems and injustices. I am not saying this is the case with Dr. Sowell, but it is a lesson I have learned in living my own life. In any case, I found his life and his approach to it very instructive. His strength and determination are inspiring. He has given me a great deal to think about as he always does and I thank him for it.

Knowing more about his life has made me want to read even more of his work including his earlier works and gives a richer context to what I have already read. I was a fan and enthusiast of his before I read this book. Now I have a deeper sense of how much it has cost him to provide me with his wisdom and insight. Now I feel a quieter gratitude for his work and generosity.

This is a book that is not only worth reading, it will enrich you and defy your expectations. I encourage everyone to read it.

Imagine you're a five-year-old Negro orphan without so much as a pot to pee in, growing up in segregated North Carolina in 1935. What can you hope to do when you grow up? Become a farm laborer? Join the Great Migration, to work in northern factories? Or how about, become America's most brilliant social scientist, aka Thomas Sowell?

Economist Thomas Sowell may have graduated magna cum laude from Harvard, and have a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago, but the most important "degree" he ever earned surely came from "UCLA" -- "the University at the Corner of Lenox Ave." -- as the old Harlem saying would have it.

Sowell has written on economic theory, race and ethnicity, education, political philosophy, cultural history, even late-talking children, in relatively simple and unpretentious prose. Readers of his curmudgeonly newspaper column know that he was born in the South, grew up in Harlem, dropped out of high school, and served in the United States Marine Corps. Here he fills out that picture. This book is a self-portrait of a man who since childhood has always gone his own way, and spoken his piece, petty tyrants be damned, even if that meant having to back up his words with his fists.

By the time Thomas Sowell was born in North Carolina in 1930, his father, Henry, had died. His mother, "Willie," overwhelmed with four older children to feed on her salary as a domestic, turned to her aunt, Molly Sowell. Molly, already some sixty years old, and her husband (whose name we are never told), adopted the child, Buddy, whom they renamed Thomas Sowell, and raised as their own.

Under the pretext of visiting her aunt, Willie would frequently visit Buddy. But a few years later, she died in childbirth, and Sowell was not to know of his true siblings until he was an adult. As a child, he knew of his aunt and uncle only as "Mama" and "Daddy."

In North Carolina, young Thomas had so few dealings with white folks, that when he saw "yellow-haired" characters in a comic strip, he did not believe that such people existed. When he was nine, "Mama," by now separated from her husband, took him and her grown-up daughters, Ruth and "Birdie," north to Harlem. In New York, the youngster discovered that yellow-haired people really did exist.

Despite his humble beginnings, Sowell considers himself lucky: Lucky that he was spared the worst of southern racism and the destruction of New York City's public schools, and lucky that he was able to establish himself professionally prior to the age of affirmative action, which has since cast a cloud over all blacks' achievements.

Not that Sowell romanticizes his school days. For though he depicts his teachers in New York City as vastly superior to their semi-literate successors, he indicts them as having been consumed with wielding power over children. In young Sowell, who depicts himself as having been an incorrigible smart-ass, more than a few met their match.

Unfortunately, it was not only in institutional settings that Sowell clashed with those who would abuse authority.

As she grew older, "Mama" increasingly became "Mama Dearest," lying and bullying, and even manipulating the police and courts, in seeking to force the teenager to submit to her, and give up any hopes he had of making something of himself. The conflict resulted in Sowell's dropping out of New York's elite, Stuyvesant High School.

Leaving home at the tender age of 17, Sowell subsisted on low-paying, dangerous, unreliable jobs as a messenger and in machine shops. Eventually, he earned his high school equivalency diploma, and after military service attended night school at black Howard University in Washington, D.C., a dismal experience, before being accepted by Harvard.

Sowell shows that already in the early 1970s, students (aided by opportunistic administrators) were telling professors what to do -- including what grades to give them. Such pathologies hastened his departure from academia. I can think of no more damning indictment of academia than that it can welcome with open arms the Andrew Hackers and Leonard Jeffrieses of the world, but has no room for Thomas Sowell.

Noting that he is not even registered to vote, Sowell mocks the notion of his being a Republican operative as a myth spun out of whole cloth by journalistic antagonists such as the recently deceased Carl Rowan. While he has little to say about politicians -- virtually none of it complimentary -- he fondly recalls the two brief encounters he had with President Ronald Reagan.

Sowell thought that Reagan had much to offer black Americans, but lamented that The Great Communicator was lost, when it came to connecting with them.

Sowell briefly notes that he occasionally suffered from racial discrimination. He has three points to make about such matters. 1. Determine that a situation is actually characterized by racial discrimination, rather than some other reason. 2. It is often better to confront racism directly, whether verbally or through a punch in the nose, than through lawsuits and legislation. 3. Perhaps most important, whites who have been caught discriminating against qualified blacks, have tended to compound their misdeed, by then hiring unqualified blacks, based solely on the color of their skin.

Sowell's main shortcoming is in failing to portray his own intellectual development, from his youthful Marxism, to becoming Marx' most trenchant American critic. A secondary weakness is his botching of the rare chronicling of his adult personal life. At one point, Sowell mentions the entry of a new woman into his life, but the next time he mentions a name, it is of a different woman entirely.

As readable as this book is, Sowell is unable or unwilling to meet the standard he set with his earlier works.

In a world of hype, whole herds of writers may claim -- through their press agents -- to be iconoclasts. A Personal Odyssey shows what really goes into leading such a life, and the price it exacts -- a price few are willing to pay.

A Different Drummer, January 3, 2001.