Thomas Sowell Biography

Thomas Sowell is an American economist and social theorist who is currently a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. He has also served on the faculties of several universities, including Cornell University and the University of California, Los Angeles. He has also worked for think tanks such as the Urban Institute.

Since 1980, he worked at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. He writes from a libertarian conservative perspective, advocating supply-side economics. Sowell has written more than thirty books (a number of which have been reprinted in revised editions), and his work has been widely anthologized. He is a National Humanities Medal recipient for an innovative scholarship that incorporated history, economics, and political science.

10 Quick Facts about Thomas Sowell

Here is a list of quick facts

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1. Name: Thomas Sowell
2. Age: 93 years
3. Birthday: June 30th
4. Zodiac Sign: Cancer
5. Height: 5 feet 11 inches
6. Nationality: American
7. Occupation: Economist and social theorist
8. Marital Status: Married
9. Salary: Under review
10. Net Worth: $5 million

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Thomas Sowell Age

Thomas Sowell is 93 years as of 2023. He was born on June 30, 1930, in Gastonia, North Carolina, United States. Sowell celebrates his birthday on June 30th every year. His birth sign is Cancer.

Thomas Sowell Height

Thomas Sowell stands at a height of 5 feet 11 inches or 1.81 m.

Thomas Sowell Weight

Sowell weighs 84 kg which is equivalent to 185 lbs. His hair color is black and he has dark brown eyes.

Thomas Sowell Early Life and Education

Thomas Sowell was born in Gastonia, North Carolina, in 1930, but his father died before he was born which made him have e a very difficult early life. His mother gave him up for adoption to his great-aunt. Sowell moved with his family to Harlem, New York, when he was nine years old.

He attended Stuyvesant High School, a prestigious college–preparatory school, but dropped out at 17 due to financial and family problems. He worked as a delivery man for Western Union and later joined the U.S. Marine Corps during the Korean War.

After his military service, he resumed his education at Howard University, a historically black college, and then transferred to Harvard University, where he graduated magna cum laude in economics in 1958. He continued his studies at Columbia University, where he earned his master’s degree in economics in 1959, and at the University of Chicago, where he obtained his Ph.D. in economics in 1968 under the supervision of George Stigler.

Thomas Sowell Family, Parents, and Siblings

Sowell was born in North Carolina to his biological parents Henry Sowell and Willie Sowell, who died before and shortly after his birth respectively. He had four siblings: Oney, Henry Jr., William, and Edward. He was adopted by his great-aunt Molly and her two daughters, who raised him as their own. He did not have any contact with his biological family until he was an adult.

Thomas Sowell Wife

Sowell has been married twice. His first wife was Alma Jean Parr, whom he married in 1964 and divorced in 1975. His second and current wife is Mary Ash, an attorney, whom he married in 1981. He has two children from his second marriage.

Thomas Sowell Children

Thomas has two children from his second marriage to Mary Ash namely John and Lorraine Sowell.

Thomas Sowell Net Worth

Ken Leung’s net worth is estimated to be around $5 million as of 2023. This includes his assets, money, and income. His primary source of income is his career as an author, economist, and social theorist. Through his various sources of income, he has been able to accumulate good fortune but prefers to lead a modest lifestyle.

Thomas Sowell Measurements and Facts

Here are some interesting facts and body measurements you should know about Sowell

Thomas Sowell Wiki

• Full Name: Thomas Sowell
• Popular As: Thomas
• Gender: Male
• Occupation / Profession: Author, economist, and social theorist
• Nationality: American
• Race / Ethnicity: African-American
• Religion: Not known
• Sexual Orientation: Straight 

Thomas Sowell Birthday

• Age / How Old?: 93 years
• Zodiac Sign: Cancer
• Date of Birth: June 30, 1930
• Place of Birth: Gastonia, North Carolina, United States
• Birthday: June 30th

Thomas Sowell Body Measurements

• Body Measurements: Not known
• Height / How Tall?: 5 feet 11 inches or 1.81 m.
• Weight: 84 kg or 185 lbs
• Eye Color: Brown
• Hair Color: Black
• Shoe Size: Not known

Thomas Sowell Family and Relationship

• Father (Dad): Willie Sowell
• Mother: Henry Sowell
• Siblings (Brothers and Sisters): Three
• Marital Status: Married
• Wife/Spouse: Amy Ash
• Children: Two

Thomas Sowell Networth and Salary

• Net Worth: $5 Million
• Salary: Under Review
• Source of Income: His career

Thomas Sowell House and Cars

• Place of living: To be Updated
• Cars: Car Brand to be Updated

Thomas Sowell Economist and social theorist

Thomas Sowell worked in a civil service job in Washington, DC, he attended night classes at Howard University, a historically black college.  Sowell said that he was a Marxist “during the decade of my 20s”; one of his earliest professional publications was a sympathetic examination of Marxist thought vs. Marxist–Leninist practice.

Thomas Sowell had experience working as a federal government intern during the summer of 1960 caused him to reject Marxian economics in favor of the free-market economic theory. During his work, Sowell discovered an association between the rise of mandated minimum wages for workers in the sugar industry of Puerto Rico and the rise of unemployment in that industry.

Studying the patterns led Sowell to theorize that the government employees who administered the minimum wage law cared more about their own jobs than the plight of the poor. He received a Doctor of Philosophy degree in economics from the University of Chicago in 1968. His dissertation was titled Say’s Law and the General Glut Controversy.

He had initially chosen Columbia University to study under George Stigler (who would later receive the Nobel Prize in Economics). When he learned that Stigler had moved to the University of Chicago, he followed him there. From 1965 to 1969, Sowell was an assistant professor of economics at Cornell University.

Writing thirty years later about the 1969 “violent” takeover by black Cornell students of Willard Straight Hall, Sowell characterized the students as “hoodlums” with “serious academic problems [and] admitted under lower academic standards” and noted “it so happens that the pervasive racism that black students supposedly encountered at every turn on campus and in town was not apparent to me during the four years that I taught at Cornell and lived in Ithaca.

Sowell has taught economics at Howard University, Rutgers, Cornell, Brandeis University, Amherst College, and the University of California, Los Angeles. Since 1980, he has been a Senior Fellow of the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, where he holds a fellowship named after Rose and Milton Friedman, his mentor.

In addition, Sowell appeared several times on William F. Buckley Jr.’s show Firing Line, during which he discussed the economics of race and privatization. In 1987, Sowell testified in favor of federal appeals court judge Robert Bork during the hearings for Bork’s nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court. In his testimony,

Thomas Sowell Writings

Sowell is both a syndicated columnist and an academic economist, whose column was distributed by Creators Syndicate. Themes of Sowell’s writing range from the social policy on race, ethnic groups, education, and decision-making, to classical and Marxian economics, to the problems of children perceived as having disabilities.

While often described as a black conservative, he prefers not to be labeled, having stated, “I prefer not to have labels, but I suspect that ‘libertarian’ would suit me better than many others, although I disagree with the libertarian movement on a number of things”.

He primarily writes on economic subjects, generally advocating a free market approach to capitalism. He opposes the Federal Reserve, arguing that it has been unsuccessful in preventing economic depressions and limiting inflation. He also writes on racial topics and is a critic of affirmative action and race-based quotas.

Thomas Sowell Books on economics

Sowell has also written a trilogy of books on ideologies and political positions, including A Conflict of Visions, where he speaks about the origins of political strife; The Vision of the Anointed, where he compares the conservative/libertarian and liberal/progressive worldviews; and The Quest for Cosmic Justice, where, as in many of his other writings, he outlines his thesis of the need for intellectuals, politicians and leaders to fix and perfect the world in utopian, and ultimately he posits disastrous fashions.

Separate from the trilogy, but also in discussion of the subject, he wrote Intellectuals and Society, where, building on his earlier work, he discusses what he argues to be the blind hubris and follies of intellectuals in a variety of areas.

His book Knowledge and Decisions, a winner of the 1980 Law and Economics Center Prize, was heralded as a “landmark work” and selected for this prize “because of its cogent contribution to our understanding of the differences between the market process and the process of government.”

Thomas Sowell Columns

Sowell had a nationally syndicated column distributed by Creators Syndicate that was published in Forbes magazine, National Review, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Times, The New York Post, and other major newspapers, as well as online on websites such as RealClearPolitics, Townhall, WorldNetDaily, and the Jewish World Review.

Sowell comments on current issues, which include liberal media bias; judicial activism (while defending originalism); intact dilation and extraction (commonly known as, and described in U.S. federal law as, partial-birth abortion); the minimum wage.

Thomas Sowell Legacy and honors

In 1990, Thomas Sowell won the Francis Boyer Award, presented by the American Enterprise Institute. In 1998, he received the Sydney Hook Award from the National Association of Scholars.

In 2002, he was awarded the National Humanities Medal for prolific scholarship melding history, economics, and political science. In 2003, he was awarded the Bradley Prize for intellectual achievement.

In 2004, he was given Laissez Faire Books’ Lysander Spooner Award for his book Applied Economics: Thinking Beyond Stage One. In 2008, getAbstract awarded his book Economic Facts and Fallacies its International Book Award.

Thomas Sowell Books

• 1987. A Conflict of Visions: Ideological Origins of Political Struggles. William Morrow, ISBN 0-688-06912-6
• 1990. Preferential Policies: An International Perspective, ISBN 0-688-08599-7
• 1993. Inside American Education, ISBN 0-7432-5408-2
• 1993. Is Reality Optional?, Hoover, ISBN 978-0-8179-9262-0
• 1995. Race and Culture: A World View. Description & chapter previews. ISBN 0-465-06796-4
• 1995. The Vision of the Anointed: Self-Congratulation As a Basis for Social Policy. Basic Books, ISBN 0-465-08995-X
• 1996. Migrations and Cultures: A World View, ISBN 0-465-04589-8 OCLC 41748039
• 1998. Conquests and Cultures: An International History, ISBN 0-465-01400-3
• 1998. Late-Talking Children, ISBN 0465038352
• 1999. Barbarians Inside the Gates and Other Controversial Essays, ISBN 0-8179-9582-X
• 1999. The Quest for Cosmic Justice, ISBN 0-684-86463-0
• 2000. A Personal Odyssey, ISBN 0-684-86465-7
• 2002. Controversial Essays, Hoover, ISBN 0-8179-2992-4
• 2002. The Einstein Syndrome: Bright Children Who Talk Late, ISBN 0-465-08141-X

Thomas Sowell Quotes

Frequently Asked Questions About Thomas Sowell

Thomas Sowell Social Media Contacts

Sowell is highly active on social media, maintaining a strong presence across various platforms like Instagram, Twitter Facebook, Youtube, and Tik Tok. Through these channels, she connects with her fans, shares new content, and updates, and cultivates a loyal community around her work. Stay Connected by following her official accounts below:

• Instagram
• Twitter
• Youtube
• Facebook
• Tik Tok

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