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Type of bind: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 305.8
EAN num: 9780465067978
ISBN number: 0465067972
Label: Basic Books
Manufacturer: Basic Books
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 352
Printing Date: June 15, 1995
Publishing house: Basic Books
Sale Popularity Level: 128417
Studio: Basic Books
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Thomas Sowell is one of America's leading voices on matters of race and ethnicity. In his most recent book, Inside American Education, he surveyed the ills of American education from the primary grades to graduate school with 'an impressive range of knowledge and acuity of observation,' according to the Wall Street Journal. Now in his newest book Race and Culture, he asks the question: 'What is it that allows certain groups to get ahead?' and the answer will undoubtedly create debates for years to come.
The thesis of Race and Culture is that productive skills are the key to understanding the economic advancement of particular racial or ethnic groups, as well as countries and civilizations -- and that the spread of those skills, whether through migration or conquest, explains much of the advancement of the human race. Whether this body of skills, aptitudes and disciplines is called 'culture' or 'human capital,' it explains far more than politics, prejudice or genetics. Rather than draw on the experience of one country or one era of history, Race and Culture encompasses dozens of racial and ethnic groups, living in scores of countries around the world, over a period of centuries. Due to its breadth and scope, this study is able to test alternative theories empirically on a vast canvas in space and time. Its conclusions refute much, if not most, of what is currently believed about race and about cultures.
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Rated by buyers -
RACE AND CULTURE is the very first book in Thomas Sowell's cultural trilogy, followed later by MIGRATIONS AND CULTURE and CONQUESTS AND CULTURE. For those familiar with Sowell's ideas, however, the overlap goes beyond the cultural trilogy series. As in other books, such as MARKETS AND MINORITIES and ETHNIC AMERICA, Sowell takes sharp aim at what is, for him, and no doubt many others, one of the main bugaboo pieces of garbage flowing through the intellectual atmosphere of yesterday - the belief that sharp differences between various ethnic and racial groups in areas such as income and education is primarily, if not exclusively, due to the all-purpose explanation of racism. To the degree that racism fails to explain all such disparities, according to the intellectual elite whose vision is sucked into that particular ideological vortex, then collateral 'isms' such as colonialism or imperialism and the 'legacy of slavery' fill in all but the smallest of gaps.
As he has done throughout his career, Sowell provides the hard evidence laying such arguments to waste. Sowell examines the cultural history of various racial groups and the historical processes that have shaped their respective developments. For many of those claiming racism as the over-arching explanation for the world we see, culture is relatively superficial and easy to overcome. Although this may be denied when expressed so starkly, their own policies and actions tell a different story. After all, these are the same people who think bald race preferences, independent of the significantly lower objective criteria of the preferences' ostensible beneficiaries, are useful ways of 'evening the playing field.' It is hard to imagine squaring that mentality with a belief that people's cultural background is anything other than superficial.
For Sowell, culture is certainly not superficial. It is the human capital that various racial and ethnic groups are able to pass onto others and goes a long way to explaining the differences we see among such groups in their rates of success, as well as their abilities to assimilate into new environments, where their skills are put to the test anew.
Of course, this human capital developed in very different ways around the globe. One of the more fascinating aspects of RACE AND CULTURE is Sowell's demonstration that factors that many people do not consider are exceptionally important when viewed empirically. Geography, for example, shapes lives in ways that seem obvious once we see it on paper. Africa has more than twice the land as Europe, but only half the coastline. Europe has navigable rivers, while those in Africa are wild and chaotic. Should we really be surprised that it was Europeans, rather than Africans, who produced explorers to colonize the New World?
One of the benefits of having someone like Sowell around is his willingness to go where others really do fear to tread. Almost every morally honest person looks at the various ethnicities around the globe, or even within his own society, and concludes that some cultures are better than others. Some people have got their acts together, others do not. It is almost taboo to say this out loud, but almost impossible not to think it. RACE AND CULTURE tackles some interesting areas (though is, at times, a bit dry to read, not being as colorful as some of Sowell's other writings; Sowell is clearly going for a more scholarly tone here) and, whether one agrees with him or not, any person examining the same issues cannot ignore Sowell's ideas and expect to be taken seriously.
Rated by buyers -
Thomas Sowell delves deep into the subject of race and culture in his book appropriately titled RACE AND CULTURE: A WORLD VIEW. From a historical point of view, Sowell examines how the subject of race may easily be misconceived and misunderstood when the discusion of the subject does not include culture, politics, economics and social factors. Sowell stresses global and historical facts of importance to emphasize that race and culture is linked from one society to the subsequent in order to understand the complexities and controversies, which have involved slavery and migration, and other issues associated with the subject.
Indeed, Sowell examines race and culture from a broad perspective. His research took twenty years to undertake as well as journeys made around the world, and attempts to pinpoint the most significant histories that have involved how race and culture has had an affect on the advancement of civilization, or as he refers "Human capital," which includes an international tint. The most interesting aspect of Sowell's study is that he provides parallels from various peoples and geographical locations that interconnect. For example, the Ottoman Empire was of great importance when it came to discussing ethnic conflict, conquest, and consequences that have occurred in history. Somewhat disappointing, Sowell provides minimal discusion of Native Americans when he speaks about American society in relation to race and culture, and possibly what might have been helpful is if he included more discusion of this area of study in the concluding chapter, Race and History.
Otherwise, RACE AND CULTURE is an academically charged study. Besides its historical significance, the book also provides contemporary references within an intellectual environment. This is a recommendable book, which will definitely exercise and feed one's mind when understanding race and culture.
Rated by buyers 
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That one person could amass such a breadth of information and so much solid thinking on this subject--spanning geographies and time--as Stowell has did for this book, is astonishing. I cannot recommend it highly enough.
When I read the book (some years ago), I did not know that Stowell is black, and was shocked when I later learned this. His lack of bias is as impressive as his command of the subject.
Rated by buyers -
Though I'm still a committed liberal, I find Sowell to be a brilliant and important social theorist. There is something to learn on every page, especially about the idea of cultural capital. He is quite convincing on all points but one crucial one: if government action is always so counterproductive and markets so rational, why are there so many who presumably "benefitted" from dog eat dog competition so eager to offer ameliorative government remedies? Still, this is an amazing book, damn it.
Rated by buyers -
This is the very first Sowell book I ever saw and when I saw it about ten years ago in the African American section of the bookstore, I thought it was going to be racist. Then I got proven wrong when I peered inside one of his other books years later... this year.
This book isn't racist because it argues intelligently about the state of race relations instead of using emotion as a thumbscrew.
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