Thomas Sowell (1930-present)

African-American economist Thomas Sowell is a prolific writer whose works are among the most well-known and have received wide acclaim for his meticulous factual accuracy, careful logic, and penetrating insights, all delivered in an engaging writing style.

Sowell received degrees from Harvard, Columbia, and the University Chicago and has been a fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institute since 1977.

He spent his twenties as a Marxist before becoming one of the most articulate and data-driven advocates of liberty after studying at the University of Chicago under the tutelage of Milton Friedman. There, he learned “how to think pragmatically” by “looking soberly at data and implications, rather than, as Sowell described about Harvard, using your personal beliefs as facts.”

Some of Sowell’s books are freely available in audio format on the Basic Economics Youtube channel.

Most can be purchased online at Amazon or from other vendors.

A full list of Sowell’s books is found on his Wikipedia page.  Some of his most well-known works include:

A Conflict of Visions: Ideological Origins of Political Struggles (1987)

Marxism: Philosophy and Economics (1985)

Is Reality Optional?: and Other Essays. (1993)

The Vision of the Anointed: Self-Congratulation As a Basis for Social Policy (1995) full text link | full audiobook and transcript

Migrations and Cultures: A World View (1996) full audiobook

Conquests and Cultures (1999) full audiobook and transcript

Dismantling America: and Other Controversial Essays (2010) full audiobook and transcript

Economic Facts and Fallacies, 2nd edition (2011) full audiobook and transcript

The Thomas Sowell Reader (2011) full audiobook

Basic Economics: A Common Sense Guide to the Economy, 5th edition (2014)

Wealth, Poverty and Politics: An International Perspective, 2nd edition (2016)

Discrimination and Disparities, revised edition (2019) full audiobook and transcript

Charter Schools and Their Enemies (2020) full audiobook and transcript

A Personal Odyssey (Thomas Sowell Memoir) full audiobook and transcript

Friedrich Hayek (1899-1992)

Nobel-prize winning economist Friedrich A. Hayek (1899-1992) was a classical liberal and insightful author on economic and societal topics.  Hayek’s 1945 article “The Use of Knowledge in Society” was voted as one of the top twenty articles published in the American Economic Review during its first hundred years.

Hayek’s best known book, The Road to Serfdom (1944) (full text link), sold over two million copies and was referred to has “that unobtainable book” in wartime Britain due to high demand and paper rationing.

The Constitution of Liberty (University of Chicago Press, 1960) (full text link) has been considered by some scholars to be his most important work.

Individualism and Economic Order consists of essays published in the 1930s and 40s.

Law, Legislation and Liberty (full text link) was published in three volumes: Rules and Order (1973), The Mirage of Social Justice (1976), and The Political Order of a Free People (1979).