Overview

Encompassing more than a decade of research around the globe, this book shows that cultural capital has far more impact than politics, prejudice, or genetics on the social and economic fates of minorities, nations, and civilization.

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9780465067978

Table of Contents

Reviews

""For those who appreciate a robust, neo-conservative romp through the minefield of contemporary race relations, Mr. Sowell's Race and Culture has much to commend it.""--New York Times ""One finishes reading this book awed with Sowell's capacity to bring together so much material in such a readable fashion.""--Myron Weiner, political scientist ""Sowell has no match in his breadth of knowledge on these issues.... Race and Culture is ultimately a cautionary tale of human history with broad implications for current public policies directed at racial and ethnic groups in the U.S.""--Lisa Chavez, president, Center for Equal Opportunity ""This footnote-studded study is a welcome contribution to sober thinking about race. Sowell reminds us that appreciating a group's special and changing stock of 'cultural capital' does not constitute prejudice.""--Booklist ""Thomas Sowell has produced a book that will compel every careful reader...to rethink their most confident views on matters of race and culture... the reader cannot help but find reasons to hope for a better world, culturally and racially, in this grimly realistic assessment.""--National Review ""Thomas Sowell's views on race and culture must command the respect of any informed, unbiased person.... The book is a tour de force that will set the standards on this important and complex subject for years to come.""--Rondo Cameron, author of A Concise Economic History of the World ""Unmatched in the breadth of its scholarship and the decisiveness of its arguments, Sowell's book is a splendid demarche against the Zeitgeist--which is the best recommendation an intelligent reader could want.""--Commentary Magazine ""Valuable.""--Library Journal

Half-baked comparisons of world ethnic groups and nationalities pepper this conservative analysis from columnist and Hoover Institution economist Sowell (Inside American Education, 1993, etc.). In focusing on race and such issues as migration, conquest, economics, politics, intelligence tests, slavery, and history, Sowell claims to reject any grand theory in favor of demonstrating the reality, persistence, and consequences of cultural differences. Sowell emphasizes the notion of human capital, under which rubric he includes a group's specific skills, general work habits, saving propensities, attitudes toward education and entrepreneurship. His argument is at its most intriguing in examining how culture has been spread through conquest and migration, and how middleman minorities such as Jews, Lebanese, and Koreans have often been unfairly resented in countries where they performed essential moneylending functions. However, his explanation for how human capital developed is contradicted at times by other examples he offers; e.g., although claiming that the Japanese culture of innovation, thrift, and conservation was necessitated by poor natural resources, he also cites a lack of critical resources (navigable rivers) in Africa but fails to explain what he considers to be the lack of comparable cultural development. Sowell's idea of culture is a pinched, narrowly economic one. Given his laissez-faire stance, it is also not surprising that he prefers the private sector avenue of advancement chosen, he says, by Jews, Germans, and Asians to the public sector route favored by the Irish and blacks. He owes it to the reader, however, to explain that the latter groups chose the political route precisely because they were denied opportunity in business. Moreover, while making the telling point that imperialism provided colonies with a physical infrastructure, he is silent about what imperialism took: the colonies' natural resources and political autonomy. While rightly assailing historical judgments colored by ideological dogma, Sowell himself is guilty of this failing, albeit with a conservative rather than a liberal bias. (Kirkus Reviews)

Author Information

Thomas Sowell has taught economics at a number of colleges and universities, including Cornell, University of California Los Angeles, and Amherst. He has published both scholarly and popular articles and books on economics, and is currently a scholar in residence at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University.

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