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.
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Please Stop Helping Us
- How Liberals Make It Harder for Blacks to Succeed
- By: Jason L. Riley
- Narrated by: J. D. Jackson
- Length: 5 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Why is it that so many efforts by liberals to lift the Black underclass not only fail, but often harm the intended beneficiaries? In Please Stop Helping Us, Jason L. Riley examines how well-intentioned welfare programs are in fact holding Black Americans back. Minimum-wage laws may lift earnings for people who are already employed, but they price a disproportionate number of Blacks out of the labor force. Affirmative action in higher education is intended to address past discrimination, but the result is fewer Black college graduates than would otherwise exist.
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Required reading
- By Ken Larsen on 02-15-15
By: Jason L. Riley
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Makers and Takers
- By: Peter Schweizer
- Narrated by: Johnny Heller
- Length: 5 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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In Makers and Takers, Peter Schweizer broadens his scope to examine the damaging effects of liberal philosophy on ordinary Americans. Drawing on national polls and academic studies, as well as the revealing testimony of liberals themselves, Schweizer shows that liberals are, on the whole, less honest, less generous, lazier, and more materialistic than their conservative counterparts.
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Excellent!
- By Eileen J. O'Connor on 03-08-16
By: Peter Schweizer
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Weapons of Mass Instruction
- A Schoolteacher's Journey Through the Dark World of Compulsory Schooling
- By: John Taylor Gatto
- Narrated by: Michael Puttonen
- Length: 8 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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John Taylor Gatto's Weapons of Mass Instruction focuses on mechanisms of traditional education which cripple imagination, discourage critical thinking, and create a false view of learning as a byproduct of rote-memorization drills. Gatto's earlier book, Dumbing Us Down, introduced the now-famous expression of the title into the common vernacular. Weapons of Mass Instruction adds another chilling metaphor to the brief against conventional schooling.
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I will never see school the same
- By Nicole on 05-21-15
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The War on the West
- By: Douglas Murray
- Narrated by: Douglas Murray
- Length: 12 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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In The War on the West, Douglas Murray shows how many well-meaning people have been fooled by hypocritical and inconsistent anti-West rhetoric. After all, if we must discard the ideas of Kant, Hume, and Mill for their opinions on race, shouldn’t we discard Marx, whose work is peppered with racial slurs and anti-Semitism? Embers of racism remain to be stamped out in America, but what about the raging racist inferno in the Middle East and Asia?
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Every Human (seriously, everyone) Read This!
- By aaron on 04-27-22
By: Douglas Murray
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Moyers on Democracy
- By: Bill Moyers
- Narrated by: Bill Moyers
- Length: 5 hrs and 22 mins
- Abridged
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People know Bill Moyers mostly from his many years of path-breaking journalism on television. But he is also one of America's most sought-after public speakers. His appearances draw sell-out crowds across the country and are among the most reproduced on the Web. Richly insightful, and alive with a fierce, abiding love for our country, Moyers on Democracy is essential listening.
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You can't help but think critically
- By Ida F. on 09-29-09
By: Bill Moyers
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Somebody's Gotta Say It
- By: Neal Boortz
- Narrated by: Neal Boortz
- Length: 6 hrs and 1 min
- Abridged
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With its outrageous brand of conservative talk, The Neal Boortz Show has been one of talk radio's hottest commodities for more than 25 years. Boortz entertains his rabid followers with commentary on everything from corruption in Washington to the troops overseas. Now, with Somebody's Gotta Say It, Neal gives us his greatest jeremiad yet: a hilarious but serious-as-taxes screed covering all the issues that get Neal and his millions of listeners hot under the collar on a daily basis.
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For the Logical not the Emotional.
- By Jon on 03-16-07
By: Neal Boortz
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First released 20 years ago & now a classic!
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Using an international framework, Sowell analyzes how much a racial group’s economic fate is determined by the surrounding society and how much by internal patterns that follow that same group around the world.
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Very interesting material, with not very good audi
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Compassion Versus Guilt and Other Essays
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Sociologist-economist Sowell, a noted conservative, offers opinions on social and foreign policy, law, education, and race, criticizing the trend of American politics since Reagan and reserving his sharpest criticism for special-interest groups.
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A Great Mind
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The Vision of the Anointed
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The Vision of the Anointed is a devastating critique of the mindset behind the failed social policies of the past thirty 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 other social pathology. In this book, "politically correct" theory is repeatedly confronted with facts-and sharp contradictions between the two are explained in terms of a whole set of self-congratulatory assumptions held by political and intellectual elites.
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An Absolute Masterpiece!
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Inside American Education
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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.
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Must read if you want to understand the condition in America
- By Aaron on 12-21-21
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Ethnic America
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The Quest for Cosmic Justice
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This book is about the great moral issues underlying many of the headline-making political controversies of our times. It is not a comforting book but a book about disturbing and dangerous trends. The Quest for Cosmic Justice shows how confused conceptions of justice end up promoting injustice, how confused conceptions of equality end up promoting inequality, and how the tyranny of social visions prevents many people from confronting the actual consequences of their own beliefs and policies.
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First released 20 years ago & now a classic!
- By Wayne on 11-05-18
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The Economics and Politics of Race
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Using an international framework, Sowell analyzes how much a racial group’s economic fate is determined by the surrounding society and how much by internal patterns that follow that same group around the world.
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Very interesting material, with not very good audi
- By Martin P. Rodgers on 04-03-13
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Sociologist-economist Sowell, a noted conservative, offers opinions on social and foreign policy, law, education, and race, criticizing the trend of American politics since Reagan and reserving his sharpest criticism for special-interest groups.
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A Great Mind
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The Vision of the Anointed is a devastating critique of the mindset behind the failed social policies of the past thirty 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 other social pathology. In this book, "politically correct" theory is repeatedly confronted with facts-and sharp contradictions between the two are explained in terms of a whole set of self-congratulatory assumptions held by political and intellectual elites.
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An Absolute Masterpiece!
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Must read if you want to understand the condition in America
- By Aaron on 12-21-21
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Dismantling America
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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
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A Personal Odyssey
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Here is the gritty, powerful story of Thomas Sowell's life-long education in the school of hard knocks, a journey that took him from Harlem to the Marines, the Ivy League, and a career as a controversial writer, teacher, and economist in government and private industry. It is also the story of the dramatically changing times in which this personal odyssey took place.
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Thomas Sowell: An American treasure!
- By Wayne on 06-30-20
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Wealth, Poverty, and Politics
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In Wealth, Poverty, and Politics, Thomas Sowell, one of the foremost conservative public intellectuals in the country, argues that political and ideological struggles have led to dangerous confusion about income inequality in America. Pundits and politically motivated economists trumpet ambiguous statistics and sensational theories while ignoring the true determinant of income inequality: the production of wealth.
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A paradigm shift on the subject of equality
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Civil Rights
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Thomas Sowell takes a tough, factual look at whether the civil rights movement has lived up to its hopes or its rhetoric. In the decades since the historic Supreme Court decision on desegregation, who has gained and who has lost? Which of the assumptions behind the civil rights revolution have stood the test of time, and which have proven to be mistaken or even catastrophic to those who were supposed to be helped?
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Thomas Sowell is the is the Vision of the US
- By DCS on 01-30-16
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Ever Wonder Why?
- And Other Controversial Essays
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Thomas Sowell takes aim at a range of legal, social, racial, educational, and economic issues 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 unsparing candor.
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He does it again.
- By David H on 09-28-23
By: Thomas Sowell
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Intellectuals and Race
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Intellectuals and Race is a radical book in the original sense - 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 book 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.
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A Satisfying Indictment of the Intelligentsia
- By Andrew on 12-27-16
By: Thomas Sowell
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Applied Economics
- Thinking Beyond Stage One: Second Edition
- By: Thomas Sowell
- Narrated by: Bill Wallace
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- Unabridged
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Applied Economics is an accessible guide to how our economic decisions develop. It explains the application of economics to major world problems, including housing, medical care, discrimination, and the economic development of nations. The book is based on an international view of economics, includes examples from around the world, and shows how certain incentives and constraints produce similar outcomes among disparate peoples and cultures.
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Look at the long term...it's important!
- By Eunice on 07-20-09
By: Thomas Sowell
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The Housing Boom and Bust
- By: Thomas Sowell
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- Unabridged
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There was no single, dramatic event that set the current financial crisis off. A whole series of very questionable decisions by many people, in many places, over a period of years, built up the pressures that led to a sudden collapse of the housing market and of financial institutions that began to fall like dominoes as a result of investing in securities based on housing prices. This book is designed to unravel the tangled threads of that story.
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Inciteful Non partisan blame
- By Adolphe on 08-04-09
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Marxism
- Philosophy and Economics
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Marxism is a term that many people freely use, but few seem to grasp its implications. Sowell's book is the antidote to this problem. He writes in a fluid and easy-to-follow manner, leading the listener through the Marxian scheme of ideas. Along the way, he shatters some existing interpretations of Marx-interpretations that have developed through repetition rather than through scholarship.
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A must read, but a hard one!
- By Keyvan on 09-19-16
By: Thomas Sowell
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Intellectuals and Society
- By: Thomas Sowell
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- Unabridged
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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.
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Biased but good
- By Justin on 05-06-10
By: Thomas Sowell
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Applied Economics
- Thinking Beyond Stage One
- By: Thomas Sowell
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This book is geared to the average citizen with little or no economics background who would like the tools to think critically about economic issues. Many of today's economic issues are obscured by their inherent complexity and the often confusing and conflicting views coming from political talking heads. Sowell, a leading conservative economist and senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, seeks to alleviate this confusion.
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Great book.
- By Dave Marks on 10-12-21
By: Thomas Sowell
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Controversial Essays
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One of conservatism's most articulate voices dissects today's most important economic, racial, political, education, legal, and social issues, sharing his entertaining and thought-provoking insights on a wide range of contentious subjects.
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The Divine Logic
- By Yi Mon on 07-27-23
By: Thomas Sowell
What listeners say about Is Reality Optional?
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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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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- 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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- Steve
- 01-10-23
Amazing!
Eye opening.
I wish everyone could read this book. Thomas Sowell is a well rounded writer that conveys complicated subjects/messages in a simple way, one that most people could understand, regardless of their “reading level”.
English is my second language and I enjoyed it, better said: I love it. This will be on my to go and revisit list.
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- Santos I. Cayetano
- 07-04-23
Consider the following
Thomas Sowell brings together a collection of ideas that should be considered by all interested in furthering their understanding and challenging their beliefs.
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