Synopses & Reviews
Intellectuals and Race is a radical book in the original sense of one that goes to the root of the problem. The role of intellectuals in racial strife is explored in an international context that puts the American experience in a wholly new light.
The views of individual intellectuals have spanned the spectrum, but the views of intellectuals as a whole have tended to cluster. Indeed, these views have clustered at one end of the spectrum in the early twentieth century and then clustered at the opposite end of the spectrum in the late twentieth century. Moreover, these radically different views of race in these two eras were held by intellectuals whose views on other issues were very similar in both eras.
Intellectuals and Race is not, however, a book about history, even though it has much historical evidence, as well as demographic, geographic, economic and statistical evidence-- all of it directed toward testing the underlying assumptions about race that have prevailed at times among intellectuals in general, and especially intellectuals at the highest levels. Nor is this simply a theoretical exercise. The impact of intellectuals' ideas and crusades on the larger society, both past and present, is the ultimate concern. These ideas and crusades have ranged widely from racial theories of intelligence to eugenics to "social justice" and multiculturalism.
In addition to in-depth examinations of these and other issues, Intellectuals and Race explores the incentives, the visions and the rationales that drive intellectuals at the highest levels to conclusions that have often turned out to be counterproductive and even disastrous, not only for particular racial or ethnic groups, but for societies as a whole.
Review
Pittsburgh Tribune-ReviewSowell brings an all-too-rare perspective to whatever he writes about that of a conservative black intellectual, especially valuable for this books topic.”
Review
"With its five institutional case studies, From Power to Prejudice offers a new interpretation of the rise and fall of anti-prejudice education in the United States. While others have emphasized the structural causes of racial inequality and discrimination in American life, Gordon highlights the ways in which an ideology of racial individualismand#8212;the notion that a society's racial order hinges on individual attitudesand#8212;came to shape American psychology, sociology, and ultimately education in the mid-twentieth century. The result is a refreshingly critical look at the relationship between social science and social reform."
Review
and#8220;From Power to Prejudiceand#160;is a powerfully argued, deeply grounded study of a crucial period in the development of American racial discourses. The strength of Gordonand#8217;s work lies in the depth of the archival research and her judicious culling of evidence from that research base to illustrate the complexity of the relationship between theory and practice in this thorny area of inquiry. This is an important and compelling study.and#8221;
Review
"What kind of people become racists? Gordon shows how mid-century Americans came to see racism as a personal problem, rooted in individual psychology rather than structural inequality. But socio-economic theories of prejudice continued to sprout, especially at historically black colleges and universities, where scholars connected racism to labor markets, housing patterns, and educational opportunity. What kind of society produces racial injustice and discrimination? That's a very different order of question, and Gordon's tightly argued book calls us to answer it."
Review
andldquo;Gordon has written a carefully reasoned account of how and why American liberals turned to individualized ways of framing the race issue in the decades after World War II, with social scientific theories and legal strategies that treated racial inequality as a problem of white prejudice and individual rights violations that could be educated or litigated away.and#160;Her explanation is multi-layered and convincingandmdash;about the basis of racial individualismandrsquo;s appeal, about the decidedly uneven compromises it exacted, and about the long-term consequences of postwar liberalismandrsquo;s constrained vision of racial reform.andrdquo;
Review
andldquo;In this highly original book, Gordon provides a rich historical account of how, in the years after World War II, American culture came to understand racism as a product of personal prejudice rather than social structure. She shows how this sudden turnaround in conventional wisdom arose from a convergence of factorsandmdash;including the rise of survey research, which provided a scientific way to measure attitudes; the attraction of this method for both researchers and research funders, as providing a less political and more andlsquo;objectiveandrsquo; way to analyze race; and the usefulness of this approach for advocates of school desegregation, who saw that if prejudice was the problem then education was the answer.andrdquo;
Review
Pittsburgh Tribune-ReviewSowell brings an all-too-rare perspective to whatever he writes about that of a conservative black intellectual, especially valuable for this books topic.”
New American
After reading Dr. Thomas Sowells latest book, Intellectuals and Race, one cannot emerge with much respect for the reasoning powers of intellectuals, particularly academics, on matters of race. Theres so much faulty logic and downright dishonesty.”
Mona Charen, Creators Syndicate
I plunged into Thomas Sowells latest book, Intellectuals and Race, immediately upon its arrival, but soon realized that I needed to slow down. Many writers express a few ideas with a great cataract of words. Sowell is the opposite. Every sentence contains at least one insight or fascinating statistic frequently more than one.”
Synopsis
Americans believe strongly in the socially transformative power of education, and the idea that we can challenge racial injustice by reducing white prejudice has long been a core component of this faith. How did we get here? In this first-rate intellectual history, Leah N. Gordon jumps into this and other big questions about race, power, and social justice.
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; To answer these questions, From Power to Prejudice examines American academiaand#151;both black and whiteand#151;in the 1940s and and#8217;50s. Gordon presents four competing visions of and#160;and#147;the race problemand#8221; and documents how an individualistic paradigm, which presented white attitudes as the source of racial injustice, gained traction. A number of factors, Gordon shows, explain racial individualismand#8217;s postwar influence: individuals were easier to measure than social forces; psychology was well funded; studying political economy was difficult amid McCarthyism; and individualism was useful in legal attacks on segregation. Highlighting vigorous midcentury debate over the meanings of racial justice and equality, From Power to Prejudice reveals how one particular vision of social justice won out among many contenders.
About the Author
Thomas Sowell is the Rose and Milton Friedman Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, and has taught economics at Cornell, UCLA, Amherst, and other academic institutions. He is the author of
Intellectuals and Society, Dismantling America, Economic Facts and Fallacies, and the classic
Basic Economics, which has been translated into six languages. Sowell has published in both academic journals and in such popular media as the
Wall Street Journal, Forbes magazine, and
Fortune, and he writes a syndicated column that appears in newspapers across the country. He lives in Stanford, California.