Rating: 
Summary: An Excellent Collection of Insightful Essays
Review: On most days Thomas Sowell's articles are the only thing worth reading in my local newspaper. In a time where most news is unenlightening fluff, Sowell preaches common sense and personal responsibility. This collection of writings is Sowell at his best, covering topics ranging from the death penalty to Clarence Thomas.Anyone who is even slightly aware of Sowell's work knows his particular disdain for the education establishment. The articles on this topic are the best ones in the book, in my humble opinion. Sowell reveals the American educational establishment as the sick fraud....Sowell is unique in his criticism because he has kept plugging away on this topic for years while others drift in and out of the debate. Sowell also throws lightening bolts at the leftist demagogues that he refers to as "the Anointed". These are the people in the media, educational establishment and the government that are constantly undermining the rights of everyone else in the country through such trendy ideas as safety, political correctness and a host of other ills...I did give this book four stars. This in no way reflects on the quality of the essays, which are excellent, but is due to the number of errors in the text...
Rating: 
Summary: Classic Sowell
Review: The book is a collection of his short articles, organized in the following categories; Social, Economic, Political, Legal, Racial, Education.
Sowell's logical and concise arguments hit like a hammer blow to those on the political left how tend to disagree with him.
The title of the book comes from the first essay in the book. The relevant line in the essay is:
"The Barbarians are not at the gates. They are inside the gates -and have academic tenure, judicial appointments, government grants and control of the movies, television and other media."
Rome didn't fall in a day. Events which caused the fall of the Roman Empire happened decades before Rome fell. Sowell gives us a warning on the future of the USA and some hope that society can improve.
Rating:
Summary: Insightful commentary on modern issues.
Review: Thomas Sowell is one of the finest critical thinkers of our time. More than that, he is uniquely able to state his views in a manner that is both comprehensive and concise. Few authors are able to pack as much valuable analysis into each line as Thomas Sowell. This latest collection of his provocative essays will challenge the presumptions and beliefs of many people, especially in America. Sowell has a special talent for slicing through fallacies, poor research, and "mushy" thinking, and getting to the truth in practically any controversy. He's logical, but at the same time he writes from a 'common sense' perspective that can be readily understood by everyone. Everyone except, perhaps, the "anointed ones." Covering culture, economics, politics, law, race, and education, the essays in this book will challenge your understanding of the world, as well as your thoughts on how society should deal with the many issues it faces.
Rating:
Summary: Cuts the Mush
Review: Thomas Sowell writes about the most important issues facing the United States today. He is a brillant and insightful thinker who cuts through all the crap and sloppy ideas that the counter-culture has been pushing on us over the past several decades.
Dr. Sowell gives a rational argument for common sense in major issues of society, economic, political, legal, racial and educational.
I love this guy and plan to read more of his books. I even begun writing my legislators. Thomas, I hope you don't mind me using your ideas when I do write them.
Thanks again for putting together these essays that cut through all the cerebral mush.
Rating:
Summary: Thomas Sowell=5 stars. No, make it 10
Review: While I've read plenty of work by plenty of writers influencing my beliefs on one issue or another, Thomas Sowell's writing has had a much more profound influence on my thinking: it's changed the very way that I view the world around me. As America becomes more divided and less free, Thomas Sowell is one of the only places I can reliably turn for an interesting dissident voice. In this collection of remarkably succint and insightful essays, Sowell pokes at the foundations of the prevailing ideologies of the day until the whole house of cards comes tumbling down. Although he's typically assigned the simplistic label "conservative," Sowell's analyses go well beyond the tired, often irrelevant divide between the "left" and the "right." Sowell isn't trying to get elected or win any popularity contests, and he doesn't have an ideological axe to grind; he's just a guy with a great deal of respect for logic, truth, and the founding ideals of this country. Indeed, Sowell dispenses with the drivel spouted by politicians of both parties as he cuts through what he calls the "mush" that typically passes for informed debate these days. Sowell has written much about the self-satisfied "anointed" who hold so much power and shape so much of the debate in this country, and he launches a frontal assault in these essays against every bastion of their power. No one is spared from Sowell's disdain for our self-appointed betters: politicians, welfare statists, race hucksters, feminists, the media, the judiciary, and most of all the educational establishment that has sold generations of kids down the river in the name of feel-good "progressive" ideas. Although he typically writes with the utmost restraint, Sowell can be outrageous and sometimes even hilarious, as in this little nugget: "Liberals love to say things like, 'We're just asking everyone to pay their fair share'. But government is not about asking. It is about telling. The difference is fundamental. It is the difference between making love and being raped, between working for a living and being a slave." There are plenty more such penetrating insights to be found here, along with an avalanche of facts, to go along with Sowell's justified contempt at America's modern-day elites. If you read Thomas Sowell and you're not quickly converted to his way of thinking, well then, as someone once said, "You can't handle the truth!"
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