Thomas Sowell was born in North Carolina and grew up in Harlem. As with many
others in his neighborhood, he left home early and did not finish high school.
The first few years were difficult ones, but eventually he joined the Marine
Corps and became a photographer in the Korean War. After leaving the service,
Sowell entered Harvard University, worked a part-time job as a photographer
and studied the science that would become his passion and profession: economics.
After graduating magna cum laude from Harvard University (1958), he went on
to receive his master’s in economics from Colombia University (1959) and a
doctorate in economics from the University of Chicago (1968).
In the early 60’s Sowell held jobs as an economist with the Dept. of Labor and
AT&T. But his real interest was in teaching and scholarship. In 1965, at Cornell
University, he began the first of many professorships. His other teaching
assignments include Rutgers University, Amherst University, Brandeis University
and the University of California at Los Angeles, where he taught in the early 70’s
and also from 1984 to 1989.
Sowell has published a large volume of writing. His dozen books, as well as
numerous articles and essays, cover a wide range of topics, from classic economic
theory to judicial activism, from civil rights to choosing the right college.
Moreover, much of his writing is considered ground-breaking work that will outlive
a majority of scholarship done today.
Through Sowell had been a regular contributor to newspapers in the late 70’s and
early 80’s, he did not begin his career as a newspaper columnist until 1984.
George F. Will’s writing, says Sowell, proved to him that someone could say
something of substance in so short a space (750 words). And besides, writing for
the general public enables him to address the heart of the issues without the
smoke and mirrors that so often accompany academic writing.
In 1990, he won the prestigious Francis Boyer Award, presented by The American
Enterprise Institute.
Currently Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institute in Stanford, California.
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