
Is Reality Optional?
And Other Essays
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Narrated by:
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Leon Nixon
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By:
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Thomas Sowell
About this listen
Thomas Sowell challenges all the assumptions of contemporary liberalism on issues ranging from the economy to race to education in this collection of controversial essays, and captures his thoughts on politics, race, and common sense with a section at the end for thought-provoking quotes.
©1993 Thomas Sowell (P)2022 TantorListeners also enjoyed...
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Story
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Knowledge and Decisions
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Thomas Sowell's Greatest Work
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The Einstein Syndrome
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The Einstein Syndrome is a follow-up to Late-Talking Children, which established Thomas Sowell as a leading spokesman on the subject of late-talking children. While many children who talk late suffer from developmental disorders or autism, there is a certain well-defined group who are developmentally normal or even quite bright, yet who may go past their fourth birthday before beginning to talk.
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The only review I needed to make
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Basic Economics
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Thomas Sowell has a different idea about how economics should be taught. With this groundbreaking introduction to economics, Sowell has thrown out the graphs, statistics, and jargon. Learning economics, he believes, should be relaxing - and even enjoyable. In this edition, Basic Economics has been revised and expanded to address the new concerns of the 21st century. It's focus has become more international, including the range of economic problems faced by foreign countries around the world.
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A mind opening consideration of Economics.
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The quest for social justice is a powerful crusade of our time, with an appeal to many different people, for many different reasons. But those who use the same words do not always present the same meanings. Clarifying those meanings is the first step toward finding out what we agree on and disagree on. From there, it is largely a question of what the facts are. Social Justice Fallacies reveals how many things that are thought to be true simply cannot stand up to documented facts, which are often the opposite of what is widely believed.
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Timely book by 93 year old Thomas Sowell
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Thomas Sowell is one of America’s leading voices on matters of race and ethnicity. In his 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 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.
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Thomas Sowell is rare breed of public intellectual
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A leading conservative intellectual defends charter schools against the teachers' unions, politicians, and liberal educators who threaten to dismantle their success.
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Another winner from Thomas Sowell!
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Biased but good
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These wide-ranging essays - on many individual political, economic, cultural, and legal issues - have as a recurring, underlying theme the decline of the values and institutions that have sustained and advanced American society for more than two centuries. This decline has been more than erosion. It has, in many cases, been a deliberate dismantling of American values and institutions by people convinced that their superior wisdom and virtue must override both the traditions of the country and the will of the people.
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Nice Collection of Essays
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When Race Trumps Merit
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Does your workplace have too few Black people in top jobs? It’s racist. Does the advanced math and science high school in your city have too many Asians? It’s racist. Does your local museum employ too many White women? It’s racist, too. After the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020, prestigious American institutions, from the medical profession to the fine arts, pleaded guilty to “systemic racism”.
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People need to read/listen to this book
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Maverick
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A paradigm shift on the subject of equality
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-
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The Thomas Sowell Reader
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Overall
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Performance
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-
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- By Dave on 10-20-11
By: Thomas Sowell
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- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
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Story
This is a study of how intellectuals as a class affect modern societies by shaping the climate of opinion in which official policies develop, on issues ranging from economics to law to war and peace. You will hear a withering and clear-eyed critique about (but not for) intellectuals that explores their impact on public opinion, policy, and society at large.
-
-
Biased but good
- By Justin on 05-06-10
By: Thomas Sowell
-
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- Self-Congratulation as a Basis for Social Policy
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A Conflict of Visions
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In this book, which the author calls a "culmination of 30 years of work in the history of ideas", Sowell attempts to explain the ideological difference between liberals and conservatives as a disagreement over the moral potential inherent in nature. Those who see that potential as limited prefer to constrain governmental authority, he argues. They feel that reform is difficult and often dangerous, and put their faith in family, custom, law, and traditional institutions.
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Critical read for 2008 change election
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Discrimination and Disparities challenges believers in such one-factor explanations of economic outcome differences as discrimination, exploitation, or genetics. It is listenable enough for people with no prior knowledge of economics. Yet the empirical evidence with which it backs up its analysis spans the globe and challenges beliefs across the ideological spectrum.
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Inside American Education
- The Decline, The Deception, The Dogmas
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Overall
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Performance
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An indictment of the American educational system criticizes the fact that the system has discarded the traditional goals of transmitting knowledge and fostering cognitive skills in favor of building self-esteem and promoting social harmony.
-
-
Must read if you want to understand the condition in America
- By Aaron on 12-21-21
By: Thomas Sowell
-
Knowledge and Decisions
- By: Thomas Sowell
- Narrated by: Robertson Dean
- Length: 20 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This reissue of Thomas Sowell’s classic study of decision making, which includes a preface by the author, updates his seminal work in the context of The Vision of the Anointed. Sowell, one of America’s most celebrated public intellectuals, describes in concrete detail how knowledge is shared and disseminated throughout modern society. He warns that society suffers from an ever-widening gap between firsthand knowledge and decision making—a gap that threatens not only our economic and political efficiency but our very freedom.
-
-
Thomas Sowell's Greatest Work
- By Doug on 12-08-12
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-
The Vision of the Anointed
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-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this devastating critique of the mindset behind the failed social policies of the past 30 years, Thomas Sowell sees what has happened not as a series of isolated mistakes, but as a logical consequence of a vision whose defects have led to disasters in education, crime, family disintegration, and more. This is an empirical study in which “politically correct” theory is repeatedly confronted with facts, and the sharp contradictions between the two are explained in terms of a set of self-congratulatory assumptions held by political and intellectual elites.
-
-
One of the best books I've ever listened to...
- By Dan on 07-29-14
By: Thomas Sowell
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Black Rednecks and White Liberals
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
This explosive new audiobook challenges many of the long-held assumptions about blacks, about Jews, about Germans and Nazis, about slavery, and about education. Plainly written, powerfully reasoned, and backed with a startling array of documented facts, Black Rednecks and White Liberals takes on the trendy intellectuals of our times as well as historic interpreters of American life.
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Great Book, Somewhat Misleading Title
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Affirmative Action Around the World
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- Narrated by: Robertson Dean
- Length: 7 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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In this important book, an eminent authority presents a new perspective on affirmative action, investigating its actual consequences in the United States and in other countries where it has been in effect. Evaluating his empirical data, Thomas Sowell concludes that race preference programs worldwide have not met expectations and have often produced the opposite of what was originally intended.
By: Thomas Sowell
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Social Justice Fallacies
- By: Thomas Sowell
- Narrated by: Brad Sanders
- Length: 6 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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The quest for social justice is a powerful crusade of our time, with an appeal to many different people, for many different reasons. But those who use the same words do not always present the same meanings. Clarifying those meanings is the first step toward finding out what we agree on and disagree on. From there, it is largely a question of what the facts are. Social Justice Fallacies reveals how many things that are thought to be true simply cannot stand up to documented facts, which are often the opposite of what is widely believed.
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Timely book by 93 year old Thomas Sowell
- By Wayne on 09-27-23
By: Thomas Sowell
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Dismantling America
- By: Thomas Sowell
- Narrated by: Robertson Dean
- Length: 8 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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These wide-ranging essays - on many individual political, economic, cultural, and legal issues - have as a recurring, underlying theme the decline of the values and institutions that have sustained and advanced American society for more than two centuries. This decline has been more than erosion. It has, in many cases, been a deliberate dismantling of American values and institutions by people convinced that their superior wisdom and virtue must override both the traditions of the country and the will of the people.
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Nice Collection of Essays
- By Laura on 09-01-11
By: Thomas Sowell
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Race and Culture
- A World View
- By: Thomas Sowell
- Narrated by: Tom Weiner
- Length: 10 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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Thomas Sowell is one of America’s leading voices on matters of race and ethnicity. In his 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 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.
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Thomas Sowell is rare breed of public intellectual
- By PAUL on 09-03-12
By: Thomas Sowell
What listeners say about Is Reality Optional?
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- Night Owl Photography
- 02-10-23
Written so long ago yet relevant today
It’s actually sad that this was written so long ago and the issues/problems he talks about are no better…and actually worse.
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- Brian
- 12-26-22
Sanity…finally
I appreciated the author’s clarity of thought applied to the many social issues of today. We’ll worth the listen and reflection.
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- Ryan
- 10-20-24
10/10
Sometimes wile listening to writings of Thomas Sowell my mind will wander and I’m forced to rewind to catch what I missed. This collection of essays kept my attention the entire way through, possibly the shorter format assisted my attention span but I found the entire collection engaging and educational.
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- Gerald W. 'Jerry' LaFleur
- 03-04-23
Food for logic circuits
Almost 100 years of personal memories plus 1,000’s of years of other people’s experiences
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- joe c
- 04-18-24
Another great one
I haven’t read a bad Sowell book yet! Every time I crack one open I think, “Go get ‘em Tom!”
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- Anonymous User
- 09-28-22
Amazing!
Thomas Sowell is a National treasure and his thorough analysis of political topics through a basic economic lens will never get old. Thank you for everything Mr. Sowell!!
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- J. Davis
- 12-29-23
How things have changed- not really
Amazing that many of the things Dr Sowell wrote about decades ago are still happening as if we are incapable of learning from the past
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- Samuel F Tomaino
- 02-27-23
Wonderfully woven wit and wisdom
Thomas Sowell draws on his vast experience and observation and delivers thought provoking reasoning and insights.
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- Matthew V Ryan
- 11-16-22
Thomas Sowell sees it all so clearly
What he says in his articles in 1990s have become frighteningly even more true now
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- halo82x
- 06-11-24
honestly
Thomas Sowell speaks truth about race, statistics, economics and political ideology. I strongly recommend this book.
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