Amazon and Kindle Places Thomas Sowell’s ‘Vision of the Anointed’ eBook “Under Review”

For unclear reasons, Amazon/Kindle have taken down the eBook of Thomas Sowell’s textbook Vision of the Anointed out of digital circulation. As of the time of of writing, the Kindle copy is listed with the title “Item Under Review” and isn’t available for purchase as a digital copy.

Released in 1995, Sowell’s book Vision of the Anointed was a companion text to his books like A Conflict of Visions and The Quest for Cosmic Justice. As the description describes it:

“Sowell presents a devastating critique of the mind-set behind the failed social policies of the past thirty years. Sowell sees what has happened during that time not as a series of isolated mistakes but as a logical consequence of a tainted vision whose defects have led to crises in education, crime, and family dynamics, and to other social pathologies. In this book, he describes how elites—the anointed—have replaced facts and rational thinking with rhetorical assertions, thereby altering the course of our social policy.”

Many conservative fans of Sowell immediately called out Amazon for what they feared was an attempt to “Cancel” Thomas Sowell and reduce his popularity.

The event is coming on the heels of multiple #CancelCulture scandals including the discontinuation of six of Dr. Seuss‘s older books for “racist content”, eBay subsequently banning the sale of those same books, the firing of Gina Carano from her role on The Mandalorian, The Muppets being given a content warning on Disney+ for problematic content and other events like Mr. PotatoHead being rereleased as non-binary.

Conservatives are naturally on edge right now.

While no other Thomas Sowell books are currently under review, and Audible/Physical Copies haven’t been affected as well, this wasnt the first time Amazon has banned content from Black Conservatives. Shelby Steele’s documentary What Killed Michael Brown was placed “Under Review” as well and last year’s Clarence Thomas documentary was removed from Amazon Prime for unknown reasons during Black History Month.

Considering that the remainder of Sowell’s work hasn’t been affected though, there’s an overwhelming chance that this is merely caused by a rights issue or a technicality with Amazon. Vision of the Anointed was released in two separate editions and the 1995 edition may have been removed in favor of the 2019 edition (which appears to be currently available).

CulturalRevue.com reached out to Amazon for a comment but hasn’t received one as of the time of writing. We will update if we hear back from them.