The Real History of Slavery is an audio chapter from Thomas Sowell’s book Black Rednecks and White Liberals giving eye-opening insights into the history and culture of race for which Thomas Sowell has become famous.
Excerpt from Thomas Sowell’s “Black Rednecks & White Liberals”.
Thomas Sowell was born on June 30, 1930. He is an American economist, turned social theorist, political philosopher, and author.
Dr. Thomas Sowell is probably one of the most brilliant minds alive in America. In a series of long essays, It presents eye-opening insights into the historical development of the ghetto culture that is today wrongly seen as a unique black identity–a culture cheered on toward self-destruction by white liberals who consider themselves “friends” of blacks. This essay titled “The Real History of Slavery” presents a jolting re-examination of that tragic institution and the narrow and distorted way it is too often seen today. The reasons for the venomous hatred of Jews, and of other groups like them in countries around the world, are explored in an essay that asks, “Are Jews Generic?” Misconceptions of German history in general, and of the Nazi era in particular, are also re-examined. So too are the inspiring achievements and painful tragedies of black education in the United States. “Black Rednecks and White Liberals” is the capstone of decades of outstanding research and writing on racial and cultural issues by Thomas Sowell.
He is currently Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. Sowell was born in North Carolina but grew up in Harlem, New York. He dropped out of high school and served in the United States Marine Corps during the Korean War. He received a bachelor’s degree, graduating magna cum laude from Harvard University in 1958 and a master’s degree from Columbia University in 1959. In 1968, he earned his Doctorate in Economics from the University of Chicago.
Sowell has 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 has worked at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. He writes from a conservative libertarian perspective, advocating supply-side economics. Sowell has written more than thirty books (some which have been reprinted in revised editions), and his work has been widely anthologized. He is a National Humanities Medal recipient.
Sowell is both a syndicated columnist and an academic economist, whose column was distributed by Creators Syndicate. Themes of Sowell’s writing range from social policy on race, ethnic groups, education, and decision-making, to classical and Marxist economics, to the problems of children perceived as having disabilities.
A Marxist black man in his twenties, 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. Dr.Sowell opposes the Federal Reserve, arguing that it has been unsuccessful in preventing economic depressions and limiting inflation.
Dr. Sowell also writes on racial topics and is a critic of affirmative action and race-based quotas. On the topic of affirmative action, Sowell has stated it’s “one of the few policies that can be said to harm virtually every group differently. Obviously, whites and Asians lose out when you have preferential admission for black students or Hispanic students—but blacks and Hispanics lose out because what typically happens is the students who have all the credentials to succeed in college are admitted to colleges where the standards are so much higher that they fail.” He takes strong issue with the notion of government as a helper or savior of minorities, arguing that the historical record shows quite the opposite.
Thomas Sowell is an American original free-thinker, PhD economist, political philosopher and author who approaches the world with a practical logic honed as a Marxist in his 20’s and refined in a conservative, libertarian with a Harvard, Columbia, University of Chicago pedigree all of which is built on a North Carolina Black South and New York Harlem upbringing.
A list of some of Thomas Sowell books:
Race and Economics
Markets and Minorities
Ethnic America: A History
The Economics and Politics of Race
Civil Rights: Rhetoric or Reality?
Marxism: Philosophy and Economics
Education: Assumptions Versus History
A Conflict of Visions: Ideological Origins of Political Struggles
Is Reality Optional?
Race and Culture: A World View
Migrations and Cultures: A World View
Affirmative Action Around the World: An Empirical Study
Black Rednecks & White Liberals: & Other Cultural & Ethnic Issues
Intellectuals and Society
Dismantling America
Intellectuals and Race
Wealth, Poverty and Politics: An International Perspective
Discrimination and Disparities
