Race and Culture

The first volume of Sowell’s trilogy on culture, comparing the economic trajectories of migrant and minority groups across many countries and centuries — the overseas Chinese, Jews, Germans, Italians, Indians and others — and arguing that the skills, habits and occupational traditions a group carries with it predict its outcomes better than either its treatment in the host country or its racial category. The method is explicitly comparative: the same group in different countries, and different groups in the same country.

Why it’s on the list: It sits in the Capitalism, Morality, and Culture section as the section’s empirical case that culture is a real economic variable rather than a decorative one.

Where I saw it: Brendan McCord’s Philosopher-Entrepreneur Reading List, in the section on Capitalism, Morality, and Culture. A structured curriculum shared March 9, 2026 and saved to Kyle’s Apple Note “Books To Read”; the full 211-entry transcription is on The Philosopher-Entrepreneur Reading List.

Connections

• Culture — the explanatory variable.
• Immigration — the migrant histories the comparison rests on.
• Economics — the outcomes being explained.
• The Philosopher-Entrepreneur Reading List — the curriculum this came from.