Thomas Sowell, American economist, philosopher, and author
Thomas Sowell (; born June 30, 1930) is an American economist, historian, social theorist, and senior fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution.Born in North Carolina, Sowell grew up in Harlem, New York. Due to financial issues and deteriorated home conditions, he dropped out of Stuyvesant High School and served in the Marine Corps during the Korean War. Upon returning to the United States, Sowell enrolled at Harvard University, graduating magna cum laude in 1958. He earned a master's degree in economics from Columbia University in 1959, and earned his doctorate in economics from the University of Chicago in 1968.

Sowell has served on the faculties of several universities, including Cornell University, Amherst College, University of California, Los Angeles, and, currently, Stanford University. He has also worked at think tanks such as the Urban Institute. Since 1980, he has worked at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, where he serves as the Rose and Milton Friedman Senior Fellow on Public Policy. Sowell writes primarily from a libertarian perspective, though he dislikes being labelled ideologically. He is a National Humanities Medal recipient for innovative scholarship which incorporated history, economics, and political science. Sowell's conservative-and-libertarian leaning philosophy made him particularly influential to the new conservative movement during the Reagan Era, influencing fellow economist Walter Williams and U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. Sowell was offered the position as head of the U.S. Department of Education as Secretary of Education under Ronald Reagan, but he refused to take the position. Sowell is the author of more than 45 books.