Charles A. Murray (born 1943) is an American writer and researcher. He is best known as the author of The Bell Curve.

Murray obtained a Ph.D in political science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and has been a fellow of the American Enterprise Institute since 1990. He has been a frequent contributor to The Public Interest, a journal of conservative politics and culture.

Murray has received grants from the right-wing Bradley Foundation to support his scholarship, including the writing of The Bell Curve. As a result of that book's controversial claims, Murray reportedly received bomb threats. He was also denounced as a racist by Jesse Jackson.

He has also written several other books on modern social issues and politics.

Works

• Losing Ground: American Social Policy, 1950-1980, Basic Books (1984) ISBN 0465042317
• In Pursuit: Of Happiness and Good Government, Simon & Schuster (1989) ISBN 0671687433
• The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life, with Richard Herrnstein, (1994) ISBN 0029146739
• What it Means to be a Libertarian, Broadway Books (1997) ISBN 0553069284
• Income Inequality and IQ, AEI Press (1998) PDF copy
• The Underclass Revisited, AEI Press (1999) PDF copy
• Human Accomplishment: The Pursuit of Excellence in the Arts and Sciences, 800 B.C. to 1950, HarperCollins (2003) ISBN 006019247X

Quotes

• "Why can a publisher sell this book? Because a huge number of well-meaning whites fear that they are closet racists, and this book tells them they are not. It's going to make them feel better about things they already think but do not know how to say."