Thomas Sowell has studied and taught economics, intellectual history, and social policy at institutions that include Cornell University, UCLA, and Amherst College. Now a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, Sowell has published more than a dozen books, the latest of which is Dismantling America.

In introducing his new book, Sowell asserts that the Obama administration "is the embodiment, the personification, and the culmination of dangerous trends that began decades ago," trends that are "dismantling America." Sowell sees this in the dismantling of marriage, of culture, and of self-government.