Ever Wonder Why? and Other Controversial Essays

The desire of individuals and groups to puff themselves up by imposing their vision on other people is a recurring theme in the culture wars.


Thomas Sowell takes on a range of legal, social, racial, educational, and economic issues--along with the culture wars--in this latest collection of his controversial, never boring, always thought-provoking essays. From gun control myths to mealy mouth media to free lunch medicine, Sowell gets to the heart of the matters we all care about with his characteristically unswerving candor.


Sowell skewers the mealy mouth media that calls terrorists insurgents and rioters demonstrators. He reveals how the idiocy of relevance in learning has been particularly destructive in the education of minority students at all levels. He explains how a free market and a strict construction of the 14th Amendment would never have permitted the laws that asked Rosa Parks to give up her seat to a white man. And he clarifies the confusion between equal opportunity and equal results that resides behind many kinds of spoiled brat politics.


With Ever Wonder Why?--drawn from the best of his popular syndicated newspaper columns--Sowell once again takes dead aim at the self-righteous and self-important forces in government, media, education, and other areas of our society, offering the thoughtful perceptions, commonsense insights, and straightforward honesty we have come to expect from one of conservatism's most articulate voices.