A Cascade Policy Institute Online Event: Discovering the Life of Thomas Sowell

On September 15, 2021 at noon PDT, Cascade Policy Institute will be joined by Wall Street Journal columnist Jason L. Riley to discuss his newly published biography, MAVERICK: A Biography of Thomas Sowell. Cascade’s Vice President of Research Dr. Eric Fruits will interview Jason Riley for this special one-hour online event.

Thomas Sowell is one of the great social theorists of our age. In a career spanning more than half a century, few scholars have matched his combination of range, rigor, and accessibility. He has written more than 30 books, covering topics from economic history and social inequality to political philosophy, race, migration, and culture. His bold and unsentimental assaults on liberal orthodoxy have endeared him to many but enraged most of his fellow intellectuals, the civil-rights establishment, and much of the mainstream media. As a result, critics preoccupied with political correctness have demeaned, downplayed, or ignored his important contributions.

MAVERICK: A Biography of Thomas Sowell not only showcases Sowell’s most significant writings but also vividly traces the life events that shaped his ideas and resulted in a black orphan from the Jim Crow South going on to graduate from Harvard, earn a Ph.D. under Milton Friedman at the University of Chicago, teach economics at Cornell and UCLA, and spend the past four decades as one of America’s foremost public intellectuals.

Jason Riley’s biography of Thomas Sowell is a portrait of one of America’s leading intellectuals. It shines a light on the extraordinary scope and depth of Sowell’s work, exploring where he has distinguished himself and how he is likely to be remembered.

Jason L. Riley is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and a columnist for the Wall Street Journal. He is the author of several previous books, including Please Stop Helping Us: How Liberals Make It Harder for Blacks to Succeed.

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