Thomas Sowell

Thomas Sowell (born 1930) is an American economist, historian, and social theorist renowned for making complex economic ideas accessible to general readers. A senior fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, Sowell studied under Nobel laureate Milton Friedman at the University of Chicago and previously taught at Cornell and UCLA.

Growing up in poverty in Harlem, Sowell’s life embodies the economic principles he writes about: personal responsibility, discipline, and critical thinking. Over his prolific career, he has written more than 30 books, including Economic Facts and Fallacies, Wealth, Poverty and Politics, and A Conflict of Visions. His writing is distinguished by clarity, evidence-based reasoning, and an unwavering focus on consequences rather than intentions. Sowell remains one of the most respected and influential economic thinkers of the modern era.