Notes & Asides.

-- Remarks on awarding the Bradley Prize to Thomas Sowell, October 7, 2003

I do not undertake to summarize, or even to list, the thirty books written by Dr. Sowell or the one hundred learned essays or the one thousand newspaper columns. Nor to summarize academic honors and tributes he has been paid, except perhaps any such tribute as especially springs to mind, the most palpable of which is that of the Bradley Foundation.

It is interesting to learn that Dr. Sowell does not give us his annual book because that is the book he has just finished. He writes his books only when he has something on his mind that demands parturition. He writes down that much of it as attracts his thought, and it might sit there for a long time awaiting supplementary exposition. He gave a speech in Switzerland in 1982. It reposed in his mind and in his notes and, seventeen years later, sprang forth as his notable Basic Economics: A Citizen's Guide to the Economy.

His writing style is admired by many, among others by the nominators and selection committee for the Bradley Prize. It is admired for its directness and fluency. However resourceful and comprehensive as a scholar, Professor Sowell writes to be read and understood. Not necessarily to persuade, but that failure is not his as a teacher, it is the problem of invincible ignorance. But he does not stop trying, and indeed he often reminds us, as recently in his book The Quest for Cosmic Justice, of the futility of grand social and political designs, miscalculated to bring heaven on earth. As much can be said of great intellectual designs for universal knowledge. His study of native cultures, of the migration of peoples, of what they bring with them to their new homelands, of the difficulties in communicating with them in the absence of a knowledge of their cultures, is a great investigative story, illuminatingly set forth. His book Conquests and Cultures: An International History testifies to his conquest of our own culture.

Not everyone has experienced him as a teacher and conversationalist. There is no more vivid memory in my own experience than of the Socratic eloquence of Tom Sowell when answering a questioner or confronting a dissident, whether on the public platform or in the living room; or, one supposes, in the classroom. There is a patience there that must have derived from Biblical mandates, because it does not come naturally to Tom Sowell. There are duties in living a role substantially public in nature, and he assumes them, though not always gladly.

Writing some time ago about the pains of book reviewing he spoke of the 600-page clunker. "After only 20 pages, it becomes painfully clear that this one is a real dog. The rest of the ordeal is like crossing the Sahara Desert -- except that often there are no oases." There is the one compensation, namely that the reviewer "gets to slaughter the author in print at the end of it all, but," he complains, "this merely appeases the desire for revenge, which only real blood would satisfy." Some who have been witness ...