Thomas Sowell has been around for a very long time. Starting his career as a Marxist, Sowell moved right during the 1970s under the influence of neoliberal economists such as Milton Friedman and Friedrich Hayek. Sowell’s reputation burgeoned in the 1970s and ’80s, when he became a significant figure in the Reaganomic assault on Keynesianism and social liberalism. While he occasionally self-identifies as a libertarian, Sowell has largely stuck to this fusion of free-market economics and social conservatism ever since, becoming a titan of the black conservative tradition in the process.

In many ways, Sowell is a pioneer of the “facts don’t care about your feelings” brand of conservatism that became ubiquitous for a while and still enjoys considerable mainstream traction. Videos of Sowell online have received blockbuster views and a fawning Twitter fan page quotes him all day long to millions of followers.

Having gone through over a thousand pages of his writing for this piece, not including interviews and short-form articles, I can understand the appeal. Sowell is no lightweight. Vastly more erudite than the dozens of faceless pop-conservative pundits following in the OG’s footsteps, his writing style is straightforward and even charming, devoid of the self-pitying melodrama that is stock and trade for other right-wing commentators. And while many of the trained economist’s writings are critiques of the Left, you’re never in doubt about whether he has practical alternatives to left-wing proposals.