Thomas Sowell has an almost godlike status amongst conservative intellectuals. "It's a scandal that economist Sowell has not been awarded the Nobel Prize," wrote a reviewer in Forbes. A profile in the Wall Street Journal described him as "one of America's great sages." His writing on politics, economics, and social issues have prompted both contempt and praise. In Maverick, Jason Riley explores the life and ideas of Thomas Sowell, one of America's most important Black intellectuals. A bright student with a tumultuous home life, Sowell was admitted to one of New York's most competitive high schools but dropped out at age 16. He left home a year later and moved into a shelter in the Bronx for homeless boys where he kept a knife under his pillow for protection. Years later, the G.I. bill enabled him to enroll in night school at Howard University and after his freshman year, he transferred to Harvard. By 1968, Sowell received his doctorate in economics from the University of Chicago, his dissertation written under the guidance of future Nobel economists Milton Friedman and George Stigler. Maverick follows Sowell from the University of Chicago to his early critiques of the Civil Rights moment. In the 60s and 70s, Sowell accepted teaching positions at Howard, Cornell, UCLA, and elsewhere -- but the campus turmoil of the era clashed with Sowell's principles and he refused to bend. He turned his attention to writing. Over the past fifty tears, Sowell has written over thirty books and countless columns and media appearances. Riley offers an introduction to Sowell's ideas, from race and inequality to economics and education. Riley considers how Sowell's own history alongside the moments and movements that shaped his thinking to offer a nuanced portrait of one of America's leading conservative intellectuals. Maverick explores the extraordinary scope and depth of arguably the most influential and trenchant Black social critics alive in America today - one whose contributions have been underacknowledged because they do not align with progressive ideas about race.

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. And so it goes with everything from soft-on-crime laws, which make black neighborhoods more dangerous, to policies that limit school choice out of a mistaken belief that charter schools and voucher programs harm the traditional public schools that most low-income students attend. In theory these efforts are intended to help the poor-and poor minorities in particular. In practice they become massive barriers to moving forward. Please Stop Helping Us lays bare these counterproductive results. People of goodwill want to see more black socioeconomic advancement, but in too many instances the current methods and approaches aren't working. Acknowledging this is an important first step.

A conservative columnist makes an eye-opening case for why immigration improves the lives of Americans and is important for the future of the country
Separating fact from myth in today's heated immigration debate, a member of "The Wall Street Journal" editorial board contends that foreign workers play a vital role in keeping America prosperous, that maintaining an open-border policy is consistent with free-market economic principals, and that the arguments put forward by opponents of immigration ultimately don't hold up to scrutiny.
In lucid, jargon-free prose aimed at the general-interest reader, Riley takes on the most common anti-immigrant complaints, including claims that today's immigrants overpopulate the United States, steal jobs, depress wages, don't assimilate, and pose an undue threat to homeland security. As the 2008 presidential election approaches with immigration reform on the front burner, "Let Them In" is essential reading for liberals and conservatives alike who want to bring an informed perspective to the discussion.