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Title: A Personal Odyssey by Thomas Sowell ISBN: 0-684-86465-7 Publisher: Free Press Pub. Date: 05 February, 2002 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.26 (19 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Anecdotes Of a Scholar
Comment: "A Personal Odyssey" is a collection of anecdotal remembrances of Thomas Sowell from his birth to the date of the writing. Written in an almost stream of consciousness style, it conveys his thoughts and values without preaching them.
Born to a poor family in the south, Sowell was given to relatives who became his new family. With this new family he moved to New York were he attended school and eventually left an intolerable home life to set out on his own at a young age.
Through this book we learn of his family, schools, his jobs, both in and out of the academy, his brushes with the political world and his interaction with the black and white communities.
There is something for many readers in this book. Everyone who has felt betrayed by family will sympathize with Sowell's young life. Everyone who has struggled with a difficult child will feel his pain when telling of his son's delayed speech. His succession of job experiences will be eye-opening for those who never worked in the academy. I think that readers generally will appreciate being spared the details of the breakdown of his marriage.
The concept of Thomas Sowell as a black man in a white world runs throughout "A Personal Odyssey." Recognizing the discrimination prevalent in society, Sowell advocates realistic and helpful solutions, while expressing his disgust with what "Black Leaders" have done to their community. Throughout his career, Sowell has striven to be accepted as a man and an economist, not as a token or a black guru. As one who came in through the front door, he resents the implication that all successful blacks come in through the back door (affirmative action).
Sowell devotes much ink to dispelling notions that he played significant roles in the Ford and Reagan Administrations. Although he is perceived as a Conservative Republican, he makes it clear that he is largely apolitical. I find Sowell's position as one who neither votes nor belongs to any political party as troublesome. Although his disgust with his treatment by political operatives is understandable, his decision to drop out of the political process is hard to understand.
Thomas Sowell leaves each reader to formulate his own opinions of the author. Personally, I gained added respect for Sowell as one who has courageously surmounted daunting obstacles and has fought for what he believed to be right. At the same time, I have to suspect that he is a difficult person to get along with. He seems to have had a lot of family problems and has left an awful lot of jobs on bad terms. Perhaps the best evaluation is that he is very courageous and strong analytically, but may be weak in interpersonal skills. In the end, I believe that I have a better understanding of Thomas Sowell from having read this book. Read, enjoy, and form your own conclusions.
Rating: 4
Summary: A useful guide in your own life
Comment: I think Thomas Sowell writes the best column in America. No one takes the conventional progressive orthodoxy and exposes it better than he does. Take these quotes for instance:
We seem to be getting closer and closer to a situation where nobody is responsible for what they did but we are all responsible for what somebody else did.
The people I feel sorry for are those who insist on continuing to do what they have always done but want the results to be different from what they have always been.
There may be a lot of people who feel like he does, but few can express it so well. I was happy to finally get to read his memoir and it's much different than the witticisms in his column. The book is a very earnest account of the challenges of growing up and not knowing how to use one?s abilities. Sowell was brilliant even as a kid, but his family wasn?t supportive and he was too rebellious to get along well in school. After a working a while, and a stint in the Marines, Sowell was able to find his center and educate himself. He does this without the benefit of his family or Affirmative Action, which he opposes.
I think he's as interesting writer because he's always in conflict with authority. This happened in public school, the Marines, in college, the Labor Department, and when he taught at Cornell University. It still continues. Sowell just refuses to live to the polite standards of modern enlightenment when they are illogical.
It would have been easy for a man of Sowell?s intellect to play the game and become a black leader as powerful as Jesse Jackson is. Not being conventional has cost him many opportunities in his life, but it has gained him his self-respect, individualism and new opportunities.
The moral of the story is that you can choose to trade your soul for riches or you can enrich your soul with your own integrity. The former results in therapy the later brings peace of mind.
Rating: 4
Summary: Great Read
Comment: As a Native American and Hispanic, Sowell brings hope for those attending school and getting into a profession. I too served in the Marine Corps and had it rough from the start but it took that training for me to appreciate the social sciences. Sowell is a man of genuis and he should be honored as a great teacher. We credit his works. America is stronger for Sowell.
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Title: Barbarians Inside the Gates: And Other Controversial Essays (Hoover Institution Press Publication, No. 450) by Thomas Sowell ISBN: 081799582X Publisher: Hoover Inst Pr Pub. Date: February, 1999 List Price(USD): $17.09 |
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Title: A Conflict of Visions: Ideological Origins of Political Struggles by Thomas Sowell ISBN: 0465081428 Publisher: Basic Books Pub. Date: 19 February, 2002 List Price(USD): $18.95 |
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Title: The Vision of the Anointed: Self-Congratulation As a Basis for Social Policy by Thomas Sowell ISBN: 046508995X Publisher: Basic Books Pub. Date: August, 1996 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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Title: The Quest for Cosmic Justice by Thomas Sowell ISBN: 0684864622 Publisher: Free Press Pub. Date: 11 October, 1999 List Price(USD): $25.00 |
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Title: Basic Economics: A Citizen's Guide to the Economy by Thomas Sowell ISBN: 046508138X Publisher: Basic Books Pub. Date: 26 December, 2000 List Price(USD): $32.50 |
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