Think tanks are chiefly supposed to provide independent…

Succinct, thorough, and masterfully researched-Thomas Medvetz has written a subtle and timely history of these fixtures of public debate in the United States. In…

— Charles Lemert

My understanding is that Exxon, in particular, did fund a variety of small think tanks to generate what amounts to propaganda against understanding of…

— John Holdren

There's been a 40-year effort on the far right to build up think tanks, academic programs, advocacy groups, to push a particular ideology. That's…

— Jane Mayer

Scratch the surface at conservative think tanks and universities that house free-market economists, and it's not hard to find proponents of a carbon tax.

— Nina Easton

Think tanks do have points of view, and they are absolutely entitled to defend them.

— David Frum

Washington, D.C. is full of think tanks, theoreticians and advocacy groups. Governors are the ones whose feet are on the ground.

— Phil Bredesen

When the so-called think tanks began to replace the thought processes of human beings, I called them the aseptic tanks.

— Erwin Chargaff

But the thought leaders on talk radio and Fox do more than shape opinion. Backed by their own wing of the book-publishing industry and…

— David Frum

If the big banks expect to buy influence when they give money to favored think tanks, then the public has a right to know.…

— Elizabeth Warren

I think that there's been an unfortunate tendency for right wing think tanks to dominate these discussions. They often produce very shoddy studies and…

— Juan Cole

You have think tanks like the widely respected Atlantic Council that have published reports in the past year that have called Afghanistan a failing…

— Khaled Hosseini

Conservative think tanks like the Heritage Foundation and Cato Institute have criticized Bush for his big increases in spending, which far exceed those of…

— Jim Cooper

Ruling elite have think tanks, they have research institutes, they've invaded universities, they've monopolized the cultural apparatuses.

— Henry Giroux

I think the universities have co-opted the intellectual, by and large. But there is an emerging intellectual set coming out of Washington think tanks…

— Richard Rodriguez

There are people who appear on television who are paid for by shadowy think tanks whose financing they won't come clean about.

— Gavin Esler