Morton's review:

In my view, Sowell ranks as the most consistently excellent writer on the public policy process today.  Any column or book by Sowell is valuable.  For this list I have chosen one of his most powerful and transforming works.

Hayek and his colleague, Ludwig von Mises, wrote long ago that government bureaucrats could never know enough to make wise decisions.  Sowell elaborates on this theme in a marvelous book that changed my thinking about the way economic and political decisions are made.

Knowledge and Decisions was published in the early 1980s, when I worked in the Reagan White House; I bought ten hardback copies and lent them to Reaganites inside the Administration.  (Not everyone was a Reaganite in the Reagan Administration.)  Sometimes the book came back, and I lent it out again.  By the time I left the White House staff in 1984, I had only two copies left, proving that even good Reaganites suffer from the 'I forgot to return your book' syndrome.  But I can understand why people forgot to return this book.