Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Although a slim volume, Sowell's Civil Rights: Rhetoric or Reality? is one of the most important books on the subject ever written. One by one, the standard platitudes about discrimination and poverty fall before Sowell's relentless statistical assault. Discrimination causes poverty? How about the Chinese minority in Southeast Asia? Discrimination against the Chinese minority is actually written into the Malaysian constitution. And yet the Chinese minority still dominates the economy. Likewise, Japanese-Americans were discriminated against so badly that 120,000 of them were forcibly relocated during World War II. Yet by 1959 they had equaled whites in income, and by 1969 were earning one third more. Politics is the only way for a minority group to advance? To the contrary: the general pattern in the United States has been for a group to become wealthy first and only then to enter politics (if at all). The Irish, on the other hand, who placed such emphasis on political action, lagged behind other ethnic groups. The book is absolutely filled with information like this. Moreover, Sowell also discusses the perils of attributing income disparities to "racism" and "discrimination." I had to laugh when I read the critical reviewer below who claimed that Sowell's book was "simplistic." Whatever criticism one might make of it, no one who actually read the book could describe it that way. In fact, I'm a college professor who assigned the book to my students, and their general complaint was actually that it was too complicated! Sowell's whole point is that it is the current "civil rights" establishment that is simplistic-all statistical disparities between groups can have only one cause: discrimination. Sowell demonstrates how utterly untenable-and, yes, simplistic-such a suggestion is. Finally, the suggestion that because Sowell holds such views he can't "really" be black: that's an accusation this brave scholar has had to endure his whole life. Apparently, all blacks are supposed to hold the same opinions. I'd say that's pretty simplistic. In short: I am not aware of any other book on this subject that is so relentless in its demolition of tired myths about affirmative action and civil rights.