Discrimination and Disparities

by

Hardcover, 320 pages

Published March 5, 2019 by Basic Books.

ISBN:
978-1-5416-4563-9
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OCLC Number:
1047549451

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2 stars (1 review)

"Challenges believers in such one-factor explanations of economic outcome differences as discrimination, explotitation or genetics. It offers its own new analysis, based on an entirely different approach--and backed up with empirical evidence from around the world. The point is not to recommend some particular policy "fix", but to clarify why so many policy fixes have turned out to be counterproductive, and to expose some seemingly invincible fallacies behind many of those conterproductive policies"--Jacket flap.

3 editions

reviewed Discrimination and Disparities by Thomas Sowell

Review of 'Discrimination and Disparities' on 'Goodreads'

2 stars

I am underwhelmed by the scientific rigor in this book. "Empirical" is a stretch. While Sowell provides lots of citations and raw data, he uses then to reach conclusions which fall over to the lightest of logical breezes. Unfortunately, the conclusions which stand to criticism arn’t the least bit new or interesting. I was hoping he would address some of the underpinnings of the discussed disparities, however he all but ignores huge societal factors such as red lining and environmental conditions.

Unfortunately, he often cited opinion pieces who's underlying methods I couldn't find.

I can appreciate the distinction between the types of discrimination, and I believe it to be a useful synchronization of terminology. That doesn't make up for the incompleteness of the rest of the book