Exploring Racial Issues Through the Eyes of Thomas Sowell in 'Black Rednecks and White Liberals'

Amazon Customer: This guy is a GENIUS
On Par with others like Paul Robeson
Great way of illuminating for everyone what problems face us all and the real root of the problem in todays cultural warfare. You can listen on youtube to some of his chapters to get an idea of what I'm talking about
So glad I discovered him while he's still alive.

Canada on Jan 03, 2024

Holford: A fearless statement of what the average person thinks and doesn’t have the courage to say.
Sowell has arrived historically at the same place to which I travelled sociologically

Australia on Jul 27, 2023

Alexander Bargander: Thomas Sowell is a very brilliant man who knows how to describe certain developments in the past and connect them to actual events in our time. This book has helped me a lot in understanding the relationships between different ethnic groups and the differences between the south and north of the US and the differences between west and east of Europe when it comes to history and development within Europe and his relationship.

Germany on Jun 12, 2023

Raymond R. White: Sowell, Thomas. Black Rednecks and White Liberals. 2005.

[material in brackets are comments by Raymond R. White]
People from the borderlands of Britain, mostly from the areas between northern England and southern Scotland, to the Colonies and the United States brought their cultures with them. They came most numerously to the southern colonies and states. See Albion’s Seed by Fischer. Malcolm Gladwell cites a study of the ease with which southerners tend to take offense.

There had been only clan law in the borderlands for hundreds of years. If your clan did not react violently to incursions by other clans, you were likely to be dispossessed. Revenge raids & killings were more frequent there. Also highland Scotland and around Ulster. Turbulent areas. During the 1700’s lowland Scotland advanced rather spectacularly, so those of lower culture came to America earlier. Irish immigration was mostly from northern Ireland where fighting was common. Later Irish immigration came from southern Ireland in the middle of the 1800’s.

Sowell cites many visitors to the US south making remarks that whites there, especially in rural areas, had little use for...

United States on Apr 02, 2022

Barry E. Sheridan: I consider myself lucky to have stumbled across the works of Thomas Sowell, this thanks to an interview that featured him on YouTube. Since then I have read two or three of his books, the last being this. As he notes, we are living today in an era of increasing racial division, sentiments that have hijacked historical events to foster guilt amongst white people while at the same time excusing those in the black community from confronting their own failings.

Central to this situation is slavery, which as Mr. Sowell explains with clarity is not just a trade conducted by white people, nor is one just affecting the United States. The truth is that slavery has been an integral part of human history, one involving all peoples of the world, indeed it was that combination of Christian roots and the Enlightenment that led white people to try to bring this trade to an end across the world during the 19th Century. Suppression of this fact has been used to imply that slavery in the United States was in some way more heinous that anywhere else, and because of this white people are the worst villains of history.

In a broad sweep this book does not limit itself to this aspect, but...

United Kingdom on Oct 05, 2020

Shepherd Book: Whether you happen to be as hardcore a libertarian and believer in the power of the free market as Sowell or not (I'm not), there is an enormous amount of information here that's worth considering. His ability to present a counter-narrative other currently popular narratives and back it up with mountains of research and data delivered in a matter of fact way is almost unprecedented. He makes a good case that what you've heard about various issues might not be the whole story, the a whole explanation, and here are a ton of facts to that effect and other alternative theories that might explain them better.
Is his own theory the whole picture, the perfect unifying description of the physics of race? Probably not, but it seems very likely that it's a not insignificant portion that needs to be considered and taken into consideration when seeking to address these problems in our own time. At the very least, I think he makes a case for his view of the facts of history that equals or betters its alternatives, and even on a purely practical level has some real potential.
One of the problems with a lot of current race theories is that they don't seem to be able to get the results...

United States on Jul 19, 2020

D.F.B R.: J'écris mon commentaire en Français pour aider à la décision. Un ouvrage fantastique. Sowell challenge toutes les idees reçues dont les medias nous abreuvent sans réfléchir.
Et il démontre leur folie avec des chiffres. On en ressort avec un immense respect pour cet homme.
Pourquoi ce livre n'est il pas traduit ? Le titre est véritablement effrayant pour les éditeurs français qui sont toujours prêts à ramper devant la doxa progressiste...

France on Jun 11, 2020