Christopher Hitchens

Una extraordinaria polémica contra la religión por uno de los intelectuales más brillantes del siglo XX y princpios del XXI, Christopher Hitchens. «Esta es la cuestión acerca de mis ideas y de quiene

Lo mejor del periodismo de Christopher Hitchens.Un antiguo proverbio dice que la vida de un hombre no es completa si no ha conocido el amor, la pobreza y la guerra. Christopher Hitchens, uno de los intelectuales mas polemicos de la actualidad, organiza esta antologia en torno a esos tres ejes. En la primera seccion, Amor, Hitchens reflexiona sobre el legado de autores como Kipling, Trotski y Churchill y celebra a Proust, Borges y Joyce (un amor que se enriquece en barrica, por decirlo asi, y se intensifica en el tiempo). Americana, el posfacio de esta seccion, incluye los viajes de Hitchens por la Ruta 66 y el Sunset Strip, y se cierra con el analisis del patriotismo que hizo tras el 11-S.En la segunda seccion, Pobreza, incluye las polemicas contra la religion y otros objetivos laicos como el cineasta Michael Moore, el historiador revisionista David Irving o el repulsivo culto a los Kennedy.Por ultimo, en la tercera seccion, Guerra, recoge sus visitas al Kurdistan, Pakistan e Irak, y sus columnas a raiz del 11-S: Me han criticado mucho por lo que dije en ese momento, asi que me he molestado en publicarlo de nuevo, igual que cuando aparecio, para mostrar como mis sentimientos cristalizaron en ideas. Ese si que fue un autentico dia de amor, de pobreza y de guerra.Reseñas:Christopher Hitchens es un extraordinario articulista. Se enfrenta a falsedades de todo tipo y siempre gana.Joseph HellerProbablemente el mejor ensayista britanico desde George Orwell, Hitchens es mucho mas que un tenaz discutidor. Entre sus multiples armas cuenta con una curiosidad inagotable, una amplia cultura, un ingenio salvaje, una inteligencia poderosa, una perspectiva internacional y una autoridad moral con raices mucho mas resistentes que la banal moralina.Andrew Anthony,The ObserverLa variedad de los intereses periodisticos y literarios de Hitchens raya en lo asombroso.NewsdaySus aliados, entre los que me cuento, disfrutamos con la precision de su punteria. Que tiemblen sus objetivos.Susan Sontag

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.

The test of this kind of book is for the reader to be able to open it anywhere and be drawn into the argument; its a test that Hitchens passes time and time again... He can be devilishly funny, but he is also capable of writing with acid seriousness. -- The IndependentThe global turmoil of the late 1980s and early 1990s severely tested every analyst and commentator. Few wrote 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. First published in 1993, the writings in For the Sake of Argument range from the political squalor of Washington to the twilight of Stalinizm in Prague, from the Jewish quarter of Damascus in the aftermath of the Gulf War to the embattled barrios of Central America. Hitchens provides re-assessments of Graham Greene, P. G. Woodhouse and C. L. R. James, and his rogues gallery gives us portraits of Henry Kissinger, Mother Theresa and P. J. ORouke. The addition of pieces on political assassination in America, as well as a devastating indictment of the evisceration of politics by pollsters and spin doctors, and an entertaining celebration of booze and fags, complete this outstanding collection from a writer of unequalled talent.

The acid, hilarious, confessional, provocative bestselling memoirs of our greatest contrarian, and the author ofgod Is Not Great.In this long-awaited and candid memoir, Hitchens re-traced the footsteps of his life to date, from his childhood in Portsmouth, with his adoring, tragic mother and reserved Naval officer father; to his life in Washington DC, the base from which from he would launch fierce attacks on tyranny of all kinds. Along the way, he recalled the girls, boys and booze; the friendships and the feuds; the grand struggles and lost causes; and the mistakes and misgivings that have characterised his life.Hitch-22 is, by turns, moving and funny, charming and infuriating, enraging and inspiring. It is an indispensable companion to the life and thought of our pre-eminent political writer.

In this vitriolic polemic, Christopher Hitchens takes on the myth surrounding the most divisive political figures in American political history: Bill Clinton and Hilary Clinton.By far the best of all the books on the Clinton era. - Edward SaidIn No One Left to Lie To, Christopher Hitchens portrays President Bill Clinton as one of the most ideologically skewed and morally negligent politicians of recent times. In 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.With blistering wit and meticulous documentation, Hitchens masterfully deconstructs Clintons abject propensity for pandering to the Left while delivering to the Right and argues that the presidents personal transgressions were inseparable from his political corruption.

In this sweeping collection of essays, reportage and criticism, Hitchens polemical talents at their most fearsome."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 the Hitchens rejection of consensus and cliche, whether hes 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.

A good liar must have a good memory: Kissinger is a stupendous liar with a remarkable memory. Christopher HitchensChristopher Hitchens goes straight for the jugular in The Trial of Henry Kissinger. Under his fearsome gaze, the former Secretary of State and National Security Advisor is accused of being a war criminal whose reckless actions and heinous disregard for international law have led to torture, kidnapping, and murder.This book is a polemical masterpiece by a man who, for forty years, was the Angloshperes preeminent man of letters. In The Trial of Henry Kissinger, Hitchens verve, style and firebrand wit are on show at the height of their potency.This is a disturbing glimpse into the dark side of American power, whose consequences in remote corners of the globe are all too often ignored. Its countless victims have found an impassioned and skilful advocate in Christopher Hitchens. - Sunday Times

The worlds greatest contrarian confronts his own death in this brave and unforgettable book. During the American book tour for his memoir, Hitch-22, Christopher Hitchens collapsed in his hotel room with excruciating pain in his chest. As he would later write in the first of a series of deeply moving Vanity Fair pieces, he was being deported from the country of the well across the stark frontier that marks off the land of malady. Over the next year he experienced the full force of modern cancer treatment. Mortality is at once an unsparingly honest account of the ravages of his disease, an examination of cancer etiquette, and the coda to a lifetime of fierce debate and peerless prose. In this moving personal account of illness, Hitchens confronts his own death - and he is combative and dignified, eloquent and witty to the very last.

I suppose that, if this collection has a point, it is the desire of one individual to see the idea of confrontation kept alive -- Christopher HitchensChristopher 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 Reagans 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.Hitchens writes clearly, from a well-stocked mind, and is free of the cant that affects many political journalists. - Publishers Weekly

A celebration of writers and their encounters with politics and public life from one of our greatest critics.Unacknowledged Legislation is a celebration of Percy Shelleys assertion that poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world. In over thirty magnificent essays on writers from Oscar Wilde to Salman Rushdie, and with his trademark wit, rigour and flair, master critic Christopher Hitchens dispels the myth of politics as a stone tied to the neck of literature. 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.I have been asked whether I wish to nominate a successor, and inheritor, a dauphin or delfino. I have decided to name Christopher Hitchens. - Gore Vidal

Three of the most provocative and thought-provoking works of the great Christopher Hitchens, now available in one volume.god Is Not Great This provocative international bestseller is the ultimate case against religion. In a series of acute readings of the major religious texts, Christopher Hitchens demonstrates the ways in which religion is man-made, dangerously sexually repressive and distorts the very origins of the cosmos. Above all, Hitchens argues that the concept of an omniscient God has profoundly damaged humanity, and proposes that the world might be a great deal better off without him.Hitch-22 The hilarious and provocative bestselling memoirs of our greatest contrarian are by turns, moving and funny, charming and infuriating, enraging and inspiring. It is an indispensable companion to the life and thought of our pre-eminent political writer.Arguably For forty years, Christopher Hitchens was at the epicentre of the battle of letters in Britain & America. Throughout his life he shone the light of reason and truth into the eyes of charlatans and hucksters, exposing falsehood and decrying hypocrisy wherever he found it. Arguably collects Hitchens writing on politics, literature and religion when he was at the zenith of his career.

Shortlisted for the 2012 Orwell PrizeAs soon as we abandon our own reason, wrote Bertrand Russell, and are content to rely upon authority, there is no end to our troubles. For over forty years, Christopher Hitchens has proclaimed truth where others have spun falsehood and written, with passionate commitment, on matters that others fear to broach. This volume of essays encompasses Hitchens writing over the past decade on politics, literature and religion.In Arguably Hitchens explores a wide range of cultural and political issues, past and present. His fresh perceptions of figures as diverse as Charles Dickens, Karl Marx, Rebecca West and Philip Larkin are matched in brilliance by his acerbic discussions and intrepid observations, gathered over a lifetime of travelling and reporting from destinations such as Iran, China and Pakistan.Hitchens life has above all else been one of defiance and wit, courage and humility: in an age of digital punditry and twenty-four hour hucksterism, he has been a voice of reason amid the clamour, making an indelible mark on politics and literature on both sides of the Atlantic. Arguably is the indispensible companion to the Anglospheres pre-eminent political writer.

Christopher Hitchens iconclastic collection is the perfect companion to US-UK relations by the greatest Anglo-American writer of his generation.Since the end of the Cold War so-called experts have been predicting the eclipse of Americas "special relationship" with Britain. But as events have shown, especially in the wake of 9/11, the political and cultural ties between America and Britain have grown stronger. Blood, Class and Empire examines the dynamics of this relationship, its many cultural manifestations-the James Bond series, PBS "Brit Kitsch," Rudyard Kipling-and explains why it still persists. Contrarian, essayist and polemicist, Christopher Hitchens notes that while the relationship is usually presented as a matter of tradition, manners, and common culture, sanctified by wartime alliance, the special ingredient is empire; transmitted from an ancient regime that has tried to preserve and renew itself thereby. England has attempted to play Greece to the American Rome, but ironically having encouraged the United States to become an equal partner in the business of empire, Britain found itself supplanted.A deeply engaging voice - witty, elegantly sceptical, and with real intellectual sinew. I can think of no-one I would rather read on this subject. - Ian McEwan

In god is Not Great Hitchens turned his formidable eloquence and rhetorical energy to the most controversial issue in the world: God and religion. The result is a devastating critique of religious faithgod Is Not Great is the ultimate case against religion. In a series of acute readings of the major religious texts, Christopher Hitchens demonstrates the ways in which religion is man-made, dangerously sexually repressive and distorts the very origins of the cosmos. Above all, Hitchens argues that the concept of an omniscient God has profoundly damaged humanity, and proposes that the world might be a great deal better off without him.

Revisiting this selection of diaries and essay-reviews from the London Review of Books is restorative, an extended spa treatment that stretches tired brains and unkinks the usual habitual responses where Hitchens is concerned. James Wolcott in his introduction Christopher Hitchens was a star writer wherever he wrote, and the same was true of the London Review of Books, to which he contributed sixty pieces over two decades. Anthologised here for the first time, this selection of his finest LRB reviews, diaries and essays (along with a smattering of ferocious letters) finds Hitchens at his very best. Familiar betes noires - Kennedy, Nixon, Kissinger, Clinton - rub shoulders with lesser-known preoccupations: P.G. Wodehouse, Princess Margaret and, magisterially, Isaiah Berlin. Here is Hitchens on the (first) Gulf War and the Salman Rushdie Acid Test, on being spanked by Mrs Thatcher in the House of Lords and taking his son to the Oscars, on Americas homegrown Nazis and Acts of Violence in Grosvenor Square in 1968. Edited by the London Review of Books, with an introduction by James Wolcott, this collection recaptures, ten years after his death, a Hitch in time: barnstorming, cauterising, and ultimately uncontainable.

Why the British Museum should hand back the Elgin Marbles

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.

Sunday Times bestsellerAnd Yet... gathers the previously uncollected essays of the late Christopher Hitchens into a final volume of peerless prose from one of the great thinkers of our times.Christopher Hitchens was an unparalleled, prolific writer, who raised the polemical essay to a new art form, over a lifetime of thinking and debating the defining issues of our times. As an essayist he contributed to the New Statesman, Atlantic Monthly, London Review of Books, TLS and Vanity Fair. Any publication of a volume of Hitchens essays was a major event on both sides of the Atlantic. Now comes a volume of Hitchens previously uncollected essays, covering the themes that define Hitchens the thinker: literature, religion and politics. These essays remind us, once more, of the fierce, brilliant and trenchant voice of Christopher Hitchens.