Background
Mr. Hitchens was born on April 13, 1949, in Portsmouth, Hampshire, United Kingdom. He was a son of Eric Ernest (a naval officer) and Yvonne (Hickman) Hitchens.
(In a compelling study of great-power misconduct, Christop...)
In a compelling study of great-power misconduct, Christopher Hitchens examines the events leading up to the partition of Cyprus and its legacy. He argues that the intervention of four major foreign powers, Turkey, Greece, Britain and the United States, turned a local dispute into a major disaster. In a new preface for this 1997 edition, Hitchens reviews the implications of the Republic of Cyprus’s applications for European union membership, the escalating regional arms race between Greece and Turkey, and last year’s Greek Cypriot protests along the partition border.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1859841899/?tag=2022091-20
(Christopher Hitchens is widely recognized as having been ...)
Christopher Hitchens is widely recognized as having been one of the liveliest and most influential of contemporary political analysts. Prepared for the Worst is a collection of the best of his essays of the 1980s published on both sides of the Atlantic. These essays confirmed his reputation as a bold commentator combining intellectual tenacity with mordant wit, whether he was writing about the intrigues of Reagan's Washington, a popular novel, the work of Tom Paine, the man George Orwell, or reporting (with sympathy as well as toughness) from Beirut or Bombay, Warsaw or Managua.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1782394664/?tag=2022091-20
(America's "special relationship" with Britain goes largel...)
America's "special relationship" with Britain goes largely unexamined. The author shows that the "special" ingredient in the relationship is a compound of empire, transmitted from an ancient regime that has tried to preserve and renew itself thereby.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0374114439/?tag=2022091-20
(The global turmoil of the last few years has severely tes...)
The global turmoil of the last few years has severely tested every analyst and commentator. Few have written with such insight as Christopher Hitchens about the large events—or with such discernment and wit about the small tell-tale signs of a disordered culture. For the Sake of Argument ranges from the political squalor of Washington, as a beleaguered Bush administration seeks desperately to stave off disaster and Clinton prepares for power; to the twilight of Stalinism in Prague; from the Jewish quarter of Damascus in the aftermath of the Gulf War to the embattled barrios of Central America and the imperishable resistance of Sarajevo, as a difficult peace is negotiated with ruthless foes. Hitchens’s unsparing account of Western realpolitik in the end shows it to rest on delusion as well as deception. The reader will find in these pages outstanding essays on political assassination in America as well as a scathing review of the evisceration of politics by pollsters and spin-doctors. Hitchens’s knowledge of the tortuous history of revolutions in the twentieth century helps him explain both the New York intelligentsia’s flirtation with Trotskyism and the frailty of Communist power structures in Eastern Europe. Hitchens’s pointed reassessments of Graham Greene, P. G. Wodehouse and C. L. R. James, or his riotous celebration of drinking and smoking, display an engaging enthusiasm and an acerbic wit. Equally entertaining is his unsparing rogues’ gallery, which gives us unforgettable portraits of the lugubrious “Dr.” Kissinger, the comprehensively reactionary “Mother” Teresa, the preposterous Paul Johnson and the predictable P. J. O’Rourke.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0860914356/?tag=2022091-20
("Just as the necessary qualification for a good liar is a...)
"Just as the necessary qualification for a good liar is a good memory, so the essential equipment of a would-be lie detector is a good timeline, and a decent archive." In NO ONE LEFT TO LIE TO, a New York Times bestseller, Christopher Hitchens casts an unflinching eye on the Clinton political machine and offers a searing indictment of a president who sought to hold power at any cost. With blistering wit and meticulous documentation, Hitchens masterfully deconstructs Clinton's abject propensity for pandering to the Left while delivering to the Right, and he argues that the president's personal transgressions were ultimately inseparable from his political corruption. Hitchens questions the president's refusals to deny accusations of rape by reputable women and lambasts, among numerous impostures, his insistence on playing the race card, the shortsightedness of his welfare bill, his ludicrous war on drugs, and his abandonment of homosexuals in the form of the Defense of Marriage Act. Opportunistic statecraft, crony capitalism, "divide and rule" identity politics, and populist manipulations-these are perhaps Clinton's greatest and most enduring legacies.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00N1GXKPC/?tag=2022091-20
(In No One Left to Lie To, a New York Times bestseller, Ch...)
In No One Left to Lie To, a New York Times bestseller, Christopher Hitchens casts an unflinching eye on Bill Clinton and his presidency and offers a searing indictment of a president who sought to hold power at any cost. With blistering wit and meticulous documentation, the incomparable Christopher Hitchens masterfully deconstructs Clinton's terms as President of the United States, studying his abject propensity for pandering to the Left while delivering to the Right, and arguing that the personal transgressions that plagued Clinton's reputation and presidency were ultimately indistinguishable from his political corruption. Hitchens dexterously questions what so few have, from the former president's refusals to deny accusations of rape, to the shortsightedness of so many of his political maneuvers--the welfare bill, his "ludicrous" war on drugs, and his abandonment of homosexuals with the enactment of the Defense of Marriage Act, among others.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0771039166/?tag=2022091-20
(A celebration of Percy Shelley’s assertion that ‘poets ar...)
A celebration of Percy Shelley’s assertion that ‘poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world’, these thirty-plus essays on writers from Oscar Wilde to Salman Rushdie dispel the myth of politics as a stone tied to the neck of literature; Norman Podhoretz’s ‘bloody crossroads’. Instead Hitchens argues that when all parties in the state were agreed on a matter, it was the individual pens that created the space for a true moral argument.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1859847862/?tag=2022091-20
(In The Trial of Henry Kissinger, Christopher Hitchens shi...)
In The Trial of Henry Kissinger, Christopher Hitchens shifts focus from Pinochet, Milosevic, Hussein, and Kim Jong-il to a man seemingly lauded and revered by the American people for what are undeniably war crimes: Henry Kissinger. Now available as a Signal paperback. Forget the regular cadre of war criminals that pollute our news headlines day in and day out; we need look no further than America's own celebrated leaders for a war criminal whose offenses rival those of the most heinous dictators in recent history: Henry Kissinger. Employing evidence based on firsthand testimony, unpublished documents, and new material uncovered by the Freedom of Information Act, and using only what would hold up in international courts of law, The Trial of Henry Kissinger outlines worldwide atrocities authorized by the former secretary of state--among them "conspiracy to commit murder, kidnap, and torture." With the precision and tenacity reminiscent of a prosecutor presenting his case, Hitchens offers readers an unrepentant, honest portrait of Kissinger, and implores governments around the world, including our own, to swiftly bring him to justice.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0771039204/?tag=2022091-20
( In this widely acclaimed biographical essay, Christophe...)
In this widely acclaimed biographical essay, Christopher Hitchens assesses the life, the achievements, and the myth of the great political writer and participant George Orwell. In true emulative and contrarian style, Hitchens is both admiring and aggressive, sympathetic yet critical, taking true measure of his subject as hero and problem. Answering both the detractors and the false claimants, Hitchens tears down the façade of sainthood erected by the hagiographers and rebuts the critics point by point. He examines Orwell and his perspectives on fascism, empire, feminism, and Englishness, as well as his outlook on America, a country and culture towards which he exhibited much ambivalence. Whether thinking about empires or dictators, race or class, nationalism or popular culture, Orwell's moral outlook remains indispensable in a world that has undergone vast changes in the fifty years since his death. Combining the best of Hitchens's polemical punch and intellectual elegance in a tightly woven and subtle argument, this book addresses not only why Orwell matters today, but how he will continue to matter in a future, uncertain world.Christopher Hitchens, one of the most incisive minds of our own age, meets Orwell on the page in this provocative encounter of wit, contention and moral truth.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0465030505/?tag=2022091-20
( "I did not, I wish to state, become a journalist becaus...)
"I did not, I wish to state, become a journalist because there was no other ‘profession' that would have me. I became a journalist because I did not want to rely on newspapers for information." Love, Poverty and War: Journeys and Essays showcases America's leading polemicist's rejection of consensus and cliché, whether he's reporting from abroad in Indonesia, Kurdistan, Iraq, North Korea, or Cuba, or when his pen is targeted mercilessly at the likes of William Clinton, Mother Theresa ("a fanatic, a fundamentalist and a fraud"), the Dalai Lama, Noam Chomsky, Mel Gibson and Michael Bloomberg. Hitchens began the nineties as a "darling of the left" but has become more of an "unaffiliated radical" whose targets include those on the "left," who he accuses of "fudging" the issue of military intervention in the Balkans, Afghanistan and Iraq. Yet, as Hitchens shows in his reportage, cultural and literary criticism, and opinion essays from the last decade, he has not jumped ship and joined the right but is faithful to the internationalist, contrarian and democratic ideals that have always informed his work.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1560255803/?tag=2022091-20
(In the tradition of Bertrand Russell's Why I Am Not a Chr...)
In the tradition of Bertrand Russell's Why I Am Not a Christian and Sam Harris's recent bestseller, The End of Faith, Christopher Hitchens makes the ultimate case against religion. With a close and erudite reading of the major religious texts, he documents the ways in which religion is a man-made wish, a cause of dangerous sexual repression, and a distortion of our origins in the cosmos. With eloquent clarity, Hitchens frames the argument for a more secular life based on science and reason, in which hell is replaced by the Hubble Telescope's awesome view of the universe, and Moses and the burning bush give way to the beauty and symmetry of the double helix.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0446697966/?tag=2022091-20
(Over the course of his 60 years, Christopher Hitchens has...)
Over the course of his 60 years, Christopher Hitchens has been a citizen of both the United States and the United Kingdom. He has been both a socialist opposed to the war in Vietnam and a supporter of the U.S. war against Islamic extremism in Iraq. He has been both a foreign correspondent in some of the world's most dangerous places and a legendary bon vivant with an unquenchable thirst for alcohol and literature. He is a fervent atheist, raised as a Christian, by a mother whose Jewish heritage was not revealed to him until her suicide. In other words, Christopher Hitchens contains multitudes. He sees all sides of an argument. And he believes the personal is political. This is the story of his life, lived large.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/044654034X/?tag=2022091-20
(OPΓIΣMENO ΠAIΔI TOY '68, ANTIPPHΣIAΣ AΠO EΠIΛOΓH, EXΘPOΣ ...)
OPΓIΣMENO ΠAIΔI TOY '68, ANTIPPHΣIAΣ AΠO EΠIΛOΓH, EXΘPOΣ TΩN ΣYMBAΣEΩN KAI ΠOΛEMIOΣ THΣ KOINOTOΠIAΣ, O KPIΣTOΦEP XITΣENΣ EINAI ENAΣ AΠO TOYΣ ΠIO TOΛMHPOYΣ KAI AMΦIΛEΓOMENOYΣ ΔHMOΣIOYΣ ΔIANOOYMENOYΣ TOY KAIPOY MAΣ. ΣTHN AYTOBIOΓPAΦIA TOY ΞETYΛIΓEI TON MITO MIAΣ ZΩHΣ ANHΣYXHΣ KAI MIAΣ TAPAΓMENHΣ ΠOΛITIKHΣ ΔIAΔPOMHΣ: AΠO TA KOΛEΓIA THΣ OΞΦOPΔHΣ ΣTHN AΘHNA TΩN ΣYNTAΓMATAPXΩN, AΠO THN KOYBA TOY KAΣTPO ΣTHN ΠOPTOΓAΛIA TOY KAPBAΛIO, AΠO TH ΣΠAPAΓMENH AΠO TON EMΦYΛIO IPΛANΔIA ΠΛAI ΣTOYΣ KOYPΔOYΣ MAXHTEΣ, KAI AΠO TON TPOTΣKIΣMO TΩN NIATΩN TOY ΣTHN ANEΠIΦYΛAKTH YΠOΣTHPIΞH TOY ΠOΛEMOY ΣTO IPAK. AIPETIKOΣ KAI BΛAΣΦHMOΣ, ΔEN ΘA ΔIΣTAΣEI NA TA BAΛEI ME TON XENPI KIΣINΓKEP, TON MΠIΛ KΛINTON KAI TH MHTEPA TEPEZA, NA EΠITEΘEI ME ΣΦOΔPOTHTA ΣTH ΘPHΣKEIA, NA KATAKPHMNIΣEI ΠPOΣΩΠIKOTHTEΣ OΠΩΣ O NOAM TΣOMΣKI, O ΓKOP BINTAΛ KAI O ENTOYAPNT ΣAINT.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B007SLMUJI/?tag=2022091-20
(For half a century, the United Nations building in New Yo...)
For half a century, the United Nations building in New York has been the focus of international inspiration. Its podium has seen petitioners for peace, for independence, for justice. Its murals and statuary express the loftiest ideals. Born of World War II and the struggle against fascism, the UN has been the parent body of many small states, and an arena for the peaceful composition of disputes between the powers. Yet, under its flag, wars have been fought and imperfect compromises brokered. The high language of its universal declarations on human rights and dignities has become cheapened by cynicism. Its servants and institutions have been exposed to decay and corruption. Meanwhile, the filiations of power and alignment which created the world body have been radically altered, while the hierarchy of the UN itself has not. These and other ironies and contradictions are visible in the Headquarters Building on the East River of Manhattan—a building that enshrined the most optimistic elements of modernism in design and symbolized them in function but which was also, from the first, an occasion of dispute between the Rockefellers and Le Corbusier and thus, indirectly, between two conceptions of world order. In a series of photographs, Adam Bartos affirms the beauty of the UN’s modern architecture, while capturing the wear and tear of an idealism thwarted by decades of diplomatic compromise. The text, by Christopher Hitchens, explores the themes of utopia and the limits of governmental good intentions. In a striking series of colour photographs, Adam Bartos affirms the beauty of the UN’s modern architecture while capturing the wear and tear of an idealism thwarted by decades of diplomatic compromise. The accompanying text, written with characteristic wit and acuity by Christopher Hitchens, explores the themes of Utopia and the limits of governmental good intentions.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1859849016/?tag=2022091-20
(In The Trial of Henry Kissinger, Christopher Hitchens shi...)
In The Trial of Henry Kissinger, Christopher Hitchens shifts focus from Pinochet, Milosevic, Hussein, and Kim Jong-il to a man seemingly lauded and revered by the American people for what are undeniably war crimes: Henry Kissinger. Now available as a Signal paperback. Forget the regular cadre of war criminals that pollute our news headlines day in and day out; we need look no further than America's own celebrated leaders for a war criminal whose offenses rival those of the most heinous dictators in recent history: Henry Kissinger. Employing evidence based on firsthand testimony, unpublished documents, and new material uncovered by the Freedom of Information Act, and using only what would hold up in international courts of law, The Trial of Henry Kissinger outlines worldwide atrocities authorized by the former secretary of state--among them "conspiracy to commit murder, kidnap, and torture." With the precision and tenacity reminiscent of a prosecutor presenting his case, Hitchens offers readers an unrepentant, honest portrait of Kissinger, and implores governments around the world, including our own, to swiftly bring him to justice.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0771039204/?tag=2022091-20
(Through the book Letters to a Young Contrarian, the autho...)
Through the book Letters to a Young Contrarian, the author Christopher Hitchens provides the necessary guidance for the future activists, independent thinkers and all the contrarians. He probes into those confrontational stances that all kinds of contrarians adopted in the crucial historical moments, and at the same time, he enables us to know those outstanding figures who have brought him countless inspirations, such as Emlie Zola, Rosa Parks and George Orwell.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/7508077601/?tag=2022091-20
("If the courts and lawyers of this country will not do th...)
"If the courts and lawyers of this country will not do their duty, we shall watch as the victims and survivors of this man pursue justice and vindication in their own dignified and painstaking way, and at their own expense, and we shall be put to shame." Forget Pinochet, Milosevic, Hussein, Kim Jong-il, or Gaddafi: America need look no further than its own lauded leaders for a war criminal whose offenses rival those of the most heinous dictators in recent history-Henry Kissinger. Employing evidence based on firsthand testimony, unpublished documents, and new information uncovered by the Freedom of Information Act, and using only what would hold up in international courts of law, THE TRIAL OF HENRY KISSINGER outlines atrocities authorized by the former secretary of state in Indochina, Bangladesh, Chile, Cyprus, East Timor, and in the plight of the Iraqi Kurds, "including conspiracy to commit murder, kidnap, and torture." With the precision and tenacity of a prosecutor, Hitchens offers an unrepentant portrait of a felonious diplomat who "maintained that laws were like cobwebs," and implores governments around the world, including our own, to bring him swiftly to justice.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00IFG3832/?tag=2022091-20
(In No One Left to Lie To, a blistering polemic which show...)
In No One Left to Lie To, a blistering polemic which shows that Clinton was at once philanderer and philistine, crooked and corrupt, Hitchens challenges perceptions - of liberals and conservatives alike - of this highly divisive figure. In The Missionary Position, Hitchens unmasks pseudo-miracles, questions Mother Teresa's fitness to adjudicate on matters of sex and reproduction, and reports on a version of saintly ubiquity which affords genial relations with dictators, corrupt tycoons and convicted frauds. In its caustic iconoclasm and unsparing wit, showcases the devastating effect of Hitchens' writing at its polemical best. In The Trial of Henry Kissinger, Hitchens goes straight for the jugular. Under his fearsome gaze, Kissinger is accused of being a war criminal whose reckless actions and heinous disregard for international law have led to torture, kidnapping, and murder.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0857898442/?tag=2022091-20
(In this unique biography of Thomas Jefferson, leading jou...)
In this unique biography of Thomas Jefferson, leading journalist and social critic Christopher Hitchens offers a startlingly new and provocative interpretation of our Founding Father. Situating Jefferson within the context of America's evolution and tracing his legacy over the past two hundred years, Hitchens brings the character of Jefferson to life as a man of his time and also as a symbolic figure beyond it.Conflicted by power, Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence and acted as Minister to France yet yearned for a quieter career in the Virginia legislature. Predicting that slavery would shape the future of America's development, this professed proponent of emancipation elided the issue in the Declaration and continued to own human property. An eloquent writer, he was an awkward public speaker; a reluctant candidate, he left an indelible presidential legacy.Jefferson's statesmanship enabled him to negotiate the Louisiana Purchase with France, doubling the size of the nation, and he authorized the Lewis and Clark expedition, opening up the American frontier for exploration and settlement. Hitchens also analyzes Jefferson's handling of the Barbary War, a lesser-known chapter of his political career, when his attempt to end the kidnapping and bribery of Americans by the Barbary states, and the subsequent war with Tripoli, led to the building of the U.S. navy and the fortification of America's reputation regarding national defense.In the background of this sophisticated analysis is a large historical drama: the fledgling nation's struggle for independence, formed in the crucible of the eighteenth-century Enlightenment, and, in its shadow, the deformation of that struggle in the excesses of the French Revolution. This artful portrait of a formative figure and a turbulent era poses a challenge to anyone interested in American history -- or in the ambiguities of human nature.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00FAYY6EC/?tag=2022091-20
("If the courts and lawyers of this country will not do th...)
"If the courts and lawyers of this country will not do their duty, we shall watch as the victims and survivors of this man pursue justice and vindication in their own dignified and painstaking way, and at their own expense, and we shall be put to shame." Forget Pinochet, Milosevic, Hussein, Kim Jong-il, or Gaddafi: America need look no further than its own lauded leaders for a war criminal whose offenses rival those of the most heinous dictators in recent history-Henry Kissinger. Employing evidence based on firsthand testimony, unpublished documents, and new information uncovered by the Freedom of Information Act, and using only what would hold up in international courts of law, THE TRIAL OF HENRY KISSINGER outlines atrocities authorized by the former secretary of state in Indochina, Bangladesh, Chile, Cyprus, East Timor, and in the plight of the Iraqi Kurds, "including conspiracy to commit murder, kidnap, and torture." With the precision and tenacity of a prosecutor, Hitchens offers an unrepentant portrait of a felonious diplomat who "maintained that laws were like cobwebs," and implores governments around the world, including our own, to bring him swiftly to justice.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00IFG3832/?tag=2022091-20
(In No One Left to Lie To, a blistering polemic which show...)
In No One Left to Lie To, a blistering polemic which shows that Clinton was at once philanderer and philistine, crooked and corrupt, Hitchens challenges perceptions - of liberals and conservatives alike - of this highly divisive figure. In The Missionary Position, Hitchens unmasks pseudo-miracles, questions Mother Teresa's fitness to adjudicate on matters of sex and reproduction, and reports on a version of saintly ubiquity which affords genial relations with dictators, corrupt tycoons and convicted frauds. In its caustic iconoclasm and unsparing wit, showcases the devastating effect of Hitchens' writing at its polemical best. In The Trial of Henry Kissinger, Hitchens goes straight for the jugular. Under his fearsome gaze, Kissinger is accused of being a war criminal whose reckless actions and heinous disregard for international law have led to torture, kidnapping, and murder.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0857898442/?tag=2022091-20
(God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything by Hitc...)
God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything by Hitchens, Christopher [T...
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00ROPSXB2/?tag=2022091-20
(Thomas Jefferson: Author of America [ Thomas Jefferson: A...)
Thomas Jefferson: Author of America [ Thomas Jefferson: Author of America by Hitchens, Christopher ( Author ) Paperback May- 2009 ] Paperback May- 05- 2009
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0092KV1VG/?tag=2022091-20
Mr. Hitchens was born on April 13, 1949, in Portsmouth, Hampshire, United Kingdom. He was a son of Eric Ernest (a naval officer) and Yvonne (Hickman) Hitchens.
Christopher Hitchens received his Philosophy, Politics and Economics degree from Oxford University, England, in 1970.
From 1970 to 1971 Mr. Hitchens worked at Times Higher Education Supplement, London, England, as a social science correspondent. From 1973 till 1981, and since 1987 he was a staff writer at New Statesman, London. In 1981 he was appointed columnist at The Nation, New York, NY. Mr. Hitchens occupied the post of a columnist at Spectator, London, starting from 1982. The same year he was appointed columnist at Times Literary Supplement, London. Between 1977 and 1981 Christopher Hitchens was a committee member of Friends of Cyprus, London. And then he became a subcommittee member of the International Committee of Labour Party.
Christopher Hitchens wrote a monthly essay in The Atlantic and occasionally contributed to other literary journals. One of his books, Unacknowledged Legislation: Writers in the Public Sphere, collected these works.
In June 2010, Mr. Hitchens was on tour in New York promoting his memoirs Hitch-22 when he was taken into emergency care suffering from a severe pericardial effusion and then announced he was postponing his tour to undergo treatment for esophageal cancer. Mr. Hitchens died on 15 December 2011 at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. In accordance with his wishes, his body was donated to medical research. Christopher Hitchens wrote a book-length work about his last illness, based on his Vanity Fair columns. Mortality was published in September 2012.
(A celebration of Percy Shelley’s assertion that ‘poets ar...)
("If the courts and lawyers of this country will not do th...)
("If the courts and lawyers of this country will not do th...)
(In No One Left to Lie To, a blistering polemic which show...)
(In No One Left to Lie To, a blistering polemic which show...)
(In The Trial of Henry Kissinger, Christopher Hitchens shi...)
(In The Trial of Henry Kissinger, Christopher Hitchens shi...)
(In No One Left to Lie To, a New York Times bestseller, Ch...)
(OPΓIΣMENO ΠAIΔI TOY '68, ANTIPPHΣIAΣ AΠO EΠIΛOΓH, EXΘPOΣ ...)
(Through the book Letters to a Young Contrarian, the autho...)
(In this unique biography of Thomas Jefferson, leading jou...)
(In the tradition of Bertrand Russell's Why I Am Not a Chr...)
( In this widely acclaimed biographical essay, Christophe...)
("Just as the necessary qualification for a good liar is a...)
(Thomas Jefferson: Author of America [ Thomas Jefferson: A...)
(In a compelling study of great-power misconduct, Christop...)
(Christopher Hitchens is widely recognized as having been ...)
(Over the course of his 60 years, Christopher Hitchens has...)
( "I did not, I wish to state, become a journalist becaus...)
(For half a century, the United Nations building in New Yo...)
(The global turmoil of the last few years has severely tes...)
(God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything by Hitc...)
(America's "special relationship" with Britain goes largel...)
(A book on Callaghan.)
(Language:Chinese.DezaakHenryKissinger [Trial of Henry Kis...)
(Language:Chinese.DezaakHenryKissinger [Trial of Henry Kis...)
(History)
(1st UK)
Author: Hostage to History: Cyprus from the Ottomans to Kissinger, 1984, Imperial Spoils: The Curious Case of the Elgin Marbles, 1987, Prepared for the Worst: Selected Essays and Minority Reports, 1988, The Monarchy: A Critique of Britain's Favorite Fetish, 1990, Blood, Class, and Nostalgia: Anglo-American Ironies, 1990, For the Sake of Argument: Essays and Minority Reports, 1993, The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice, 1995, No One Left to Lie To: The Triangulations of William Jefferson Clinton, 1999, Unacknowledged Legislation: Writers in the Public Sphere, 2000, Letters to a Young Contrarian, 2001, The Trial of Henry Kissinger, 2001, Why Orwell Matters, 2002, A Long Short War: The Postponed Liberation of Iraq, 2003, Love, Poverty, and War: Journeys and Essays, 2004, Thomas Jefferson: Author of America, 2005, Thomas Paine's "Rights of Man": A Biography, 2006, God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, 2007, Hitch-22: A Memoir, 2010. Co-author: Callaghan, The Road to Number Ten, 1976, When Borders Bleed: The Struggle of the Kurds, 1994, International Territory: The United Nations, 1945-1995, 1995, Christopher Hitchens and His Critics: Terror, Iraq and the Left, 2008, Is Christianity Good for the World? – A Debate, 2008. Editor: Vanity Fair's Hollywood, 2000, A Matter of Principle: Humanitarian Arguments for War in Iraq, 2005, The Portable Atheist: Essential Readings for the Non-Believer, 2007.Co-editor: Blaming the Victims: Spurious Scholarship and the Palestinian Question, 1988, Left Hooks, Right Crosses: A Decade of Political Writing, 2002. Writer, narrator (films) The God That Fled: Bhagwan Rajneesh, 1980, The Enchanted Glass: Britain and Its Monarchy, 1988, Cyprus: An Island Stranded in Time, 1989, Come Home, America, Why Bill Clinton Will be President, 1992, Hell's Angel: Mother Teresa, 1996, All the Rage: The Death Penalty in America, 1997, The Failure of Spike Lee, 1997, Princess Diana: The Mourning After, 1998, The Trials of Henry Kissinger, 2002, Lone Star: Deep in the Mind of Texas, 2004.
Christopher Hitchens was raised nominally Christian, and went to Christian boarding schools, but from an early age declined to participate in communal prayers. Later in life, Mr. Hitchens discovered that he was of Jewish descent on his mother's side. Mr. Hitchens's Jewish-born ancestors were immigrants from Eastern Europe (including Poland).
Christopher Hitchens was an antitheist, and said that a person "could be an atheist and wish that belief in God were correct," but that "an antitheist, a term I'm trying to get into circulation, is someone who is relieved that there's no evidence for such an assertion." He often spoke against the Abrahamic religions.
In his bestseller God Is Not Great, Mr. Hitchens expanded his criticism to include all religions, including those rarely criticised by Western secularists, such as Buddhism and neo-paganism. Hitchens said that organised religion is "the main source of hatred in the world", calling it "[v]iolent, irrational, intolerant, allied to racism, tribalism, and bigotry, invested in ignorance and hostile to free inquiry, contemptuous of women and coercive toward children: [it] ought to have a great deal on its conscience".
In 2009 Mr. Hitchens was listed by Forbes magazine as one of the "25 most influential liberals in the U.S. media". The same article noted, however, that he would "likely be aghast to find himself on this list", as it reduces his self-styled radicalism to mere liberalism. Christopher Hitchens's political perspectives also appear in his wide-ranging writings, which include many dialogues. He said of libertarianism, "I have always found it quaint, and rather touching, that there is a movement in the US that thinks Americans are not yet selfish enough."
While Christopher Hitchens supported Israel's right to exist, he was critical of the Israeli government's handling of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. Having long described himself as a socialist and a Marxist, Mr. Hitchens began his break from the established political left after what he called the "tepid reaction" of the Western left to the controversy over The Satanic Verses, followed by the left's embrace of Bill Clinton, and the antiwar movement's opposition to NATO intervention in Bosnia and Herzegovina in the 1990s. He later became a liberal hawk and supported the War on Terror, but he had some reservation, such as his characterization of waterboarding as torture after voluntarily undergoing the procedure. In January 2006, he joined with four other individuals and four organizations, including the ACLU and Greenpeace, as plaintiffs in a lawsuit, ACLU v. NSA, challenging Bush's NSA warrantless surveillance; the lawsuit was filed by the ACLU.
Quotations:
"Owners of dogs will have noticed that, if you provide them with food and water and shelter and affection, they will think you are god. Whereas owners of cats are compelled to realize that, if you provide them with food and water and shelter and affection, they draw the conclusion that they are gods."
"To terrify children with the image of hell, to consider women an inferior creation—is that good for the world?"
"Everybody does have a book in them, but in most cases that's where it should stay."
"Beware the irrational, however seductive. Shun the 'transcendent' and all who invite you to subordinate or annihilate yourself. Distrust compassion; prefer dignity for yourself and others. Don't be afraid to be thought arrogant or selfish. Picture all experts as if they were mammals. Never be a spectator of unfairness or stupidity. Seek out argument and disputation for their own sake; the grave will supply plenty of time for silence. Suspect your own motives, and all excuses. Do not live for others any more than you would expect others to live for you."
"Human decency is not derived from religion. It precedes it."
"The essence of the independent mind lies not in what it thinks, but in how it thinks."
"Our belief is not a belief. Our principles are not a faith. We do not rely solely upon science and reason, because these are necessary rather than sufficient factors, but we distrust anything that contradicts science or outrages reason. We may differ on many things, but what we respect is free inquiry, openmindedness, and the pursuit of ideas for their own sake."
Mr. Hitchens was married twice, first to Eleni Meleagrou, a Greek Cypriot in 1981; the couple had a son, Alexander, and a daughter, Sophia. In 1991, Christopher Hitchens married Carol Blue, an American screenwriter, in a ceremony held at the apartment of Victor Navasky, editor of The Nation. They had a daughter, Antonia.