person1943–

Charles Murray

Disciplines:

Summary

American political scientist — AEI scholar — author of Losing Ground, The Bell Curve, Coming Apart, and Human Diversity — the most controversial and influential conservative social scientist of his generation.

Core Contribution

Creates the class divergence thesis for American society — Coming Apart's account of how white Americans have split into a self-reproducing cognitive elite (Belmont) and a deteriorating working class (Fishtown) is the most sociologically serious diagnosis of Trump's America written before Trump.

Key Spikes & Highlights

Was shouted off stage at Middlebury College in 2017 and his faculty host was physically assaulted — the incident became the canonical case of campus free speech suppression and made him more famous than his scholarship alone would have; the students who rioted had not read his book
Losing Ground (1984) provided the intellectual case for the 1996 welfare reform — a book written 12 years before the legislation it inspired is the clearest case of academic research changing social policy in conservative politics

Notable Works & Achievements

Losing Ground

In Pursuit of Happiness and Good Government

The Bell Curve

Coming Apart

By the People

Human Diversity

Historical Influences

F.A. Hayek James Q. Wilson Edward Banfield

Intellectual Lineage

Newton, Iowa Harvard MIT Peace Corps Thailand AEI

Contemporaries & Peers

Richard Herrnstein James Q. Wilson William Julius Wilson

Minds Influenced

Welfare reform

Intellectual Posterity

Losing Ground The Bell Curve Coming Apart Murray as AEI social scientist

Discussing

Charles Murray

Ask anything about Charles Murray — their ideas, influences, contradictions, legacy.

person1943–

Charles Murray

Disciplines:

Summary

Core Contribution

Key Spikes & Highlights

Was shouted off stage at Middlebury College in 2017 and his faculty host was physically assaulted — the incident became the canonical case of campus free speech suppression and made him more famous than his scholarship alone would have; the students who rioted had not read his book
Losing Ground (1984) provided the intellectual case for the 1996 welfare reform — a book written 12 years before the legislation it inspired is the clearest case of academic research changing social policy in conservative politics