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"All first-rate criticism first defines what we are confronting," the late, great jazz critic Whitney Balliett once wrote. By that measure, the essays of Christopher Hitchens are in the first tier. For nearly four decades, Hitchens has been telling us, in pitch-perfect prose, what we confront when we grapple with first principles-the principles of reason and tolerance and scepticism that define and inform the foundations of our civilization-principles that, to endure, must be defended anew by every generation.

"A short list of the greatest living conversationalists in English," said The Economist , "would probably have to include Christopher Hitchens, Sir Patrick Leigh-Fermor, and Sir Tom Stoppard. Great brilliance, fantastic powers of recall, and quick wit are clearly valuable in sustaining conversation at these cosmic levels. Charm may be helpful, too." Hitchens – who staunchly declines all offers of knighthood-hereby invites you to take a seat at a democratic conversation, to be engaged, and to be reasoned with. His knowledge is formidable, an encyclopedic treasure, and yet one has the feeling, reading him, of hearing a person thinking out loud, following the inexorable logic of his thought, wherever it might lead, unafraid to expose fraudulence, denounce injustice, and excoriate hypocrisy. Legions of readers, admirers and detractors alike, have learned to read Hitchens with something approaching awe at his felicity of language, the oxygen in every sentence, the enviable wit and his readiness, even eagerness, to fight a foe or mount the ramparts.

Here, he supplies fresh perceptions of such figures as varied as Charles Dickens, Karl Marx, Rebecca West, George Orwell, J.G. Ballard, and Philip Larkin are matched in brilliance by his pungent discussions and intrepid observations, gathered from a lifetime of travelling and reporting from such destinations as Iran, China, and Pakistan.

Hitchens's directness, elegance, lightly carried erudition, critical and psychological insight, humour, and sympathy-applied as they are here to a dazzling variety of subjects-all set a standard for the essayist that has rarely been matched in our time. What emerges from this indispensable volume is an intellectual self-portrait of a writer with an exemplary steadiness of purpose and a love affair with the delights and seductions of the English language, a man anchored in a profound and humane vision of the human longing for reason and justice.

Christopher Hitchens (1949-2011) was a matchless writer, debater and humanist. 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. With his passing, the world has lost a great soul, the written word one of its finest advocates and those who stand for freedom everywhere have lost one of their clearest voices.

Arguably collects Hitchens' writing on politics, literature and religion when he was at the zenith of his career; it is the indispensible companion to the finest English essayist since Orwell.

Introduction xv
All American
Gods of Our Fathers: The United States of Enlightenment 3
The Private Jefferson 8
Jefferson Versus the Muslim Pirates 12
Benjamin Franklin: Free and Easy 21
John Brown: The Man Who Ended Slavery 28
Abraham Lincoln: Misery's Child 34
Mark Twain: American Radical 40
Upton Sinclair: A Capitalist Primer 47
JFK: In Sickness and by Stealth 54
Saul Bellow: The Great Assimilator 62
Vladimir Nabokov: Hurricane Lolita 70
John Updike, Part One: No Way 78
John Updike, Part Two: Mr. Geniality 85
Vidal Loco 89
America the Banana Republic 94
An Anglosphere Future 99
Political Animals 108
Old Enough to Die 117
In Defense of Foxhole Atheists 124
In Search of the Washington Novel 131
Eclectic Affinities
Isaac Newton: Flaws of Gravity 139
The Men Who Made England: Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall 146
Edmund Burke: Reactionary Prophet 152
Samuel Johnson: Demons and Dictionaries 165
Gustave Flaubert: I'm with Stupide 171
The Dark Side of Dickens 175
Marx's Journalism: The Grub Street Years 180
Rebecca West: Things Worth Fighting For 191
Ezra Pound: A Revolutionary Simpleton 222
On Animal Farm 228
Jessica Mitford's Poison Pen 237
W. Somerset Maugham: Poor Old Willie 242
Evelyn Waugh: The Permanent Adolescent 250
P. G. Wodehouse: The Honorable Schoolboy 265
Anthony Powell: An Omnivorous Curiosity 276
John Buchan: Spy Thrillers Father 290
Graham Greene: I'll Be Damned 297
Death from a Salesman: Graham Greene's Bottled Ontology 308
Loving Philip Larkin 323
Stephen Spender: A Nice Bloody Fool 332
Edward Upward: The Captive Mind 340
C. L. R. James: Mid Off Not Right On 347
J. G. Ballard: The Catastrophist 353
Fraser's Flashman: Scoundrel Time 358
Fleet Street's Finest: From Waugh to Frayn 365
Saki: Where the Wild Things Are 375
Harry Potter: The Boy Who Lived 380
Amusements, Annoyances, and Disappointments
Why Women Aren't Funny 389
Stieg Larsson: The Author Who Played with Fire 397
As American as Apple Pie 403
So Many Men's Rooms, So Little Time 411
The New Commandments 414
In Your Face 423
Wine Drinkers of the World, Unite 426
Charles, Prince of Piffle 429
Offshore Accounts
Afghanistan's Dangerous Bet 435
First, Silence the Whistle-Blower 445
Believe Me, It's Torture 448
Iran's Waiting Game 455
Long Live Democratic Seismology 467
Benazir Bhutto: Daughter of Destiny 471
From Abbottabad to Worse 474
The Perils of Partition 480
Algeria: A French Quarrel 493
The Case of Orientalism 498
Edward Said: Where the Twain Should Have Met 504
The Swastika and the Cedar 513
Holiday in Iraq 519
Tunisia: At the Desert's Edge 526
What Happened to the Suicide Bombers or Jerusalem? 532
Childhood's End: An African Nightmare 535
The Vietnam Syndrome 541
Once Upon a Time in Germany 548
Worse Than Nineteen Eighty-four 553
North Korea: A Nation of Racist Dwarves 556
The Eighteenth Brumaire of the Castro Dynasty 559
Hugo Boss 563
Is the Euro Doomed? 566
Overstating Jewish Power 569
The Case for Humanitarian Intervention 573
Legacies of Totalitarianism
Victor Serge: Pictures from an Inquisition 585
Andre Malraux: One Man's Fate 595
Arthur Koestler: The Zealot 602
Isabel Allende: Chile Redux 607
The Persian Version 617
Martin Amis: Lightness at Midnight 625
Imagining Hitler 640
Victor Klemperer: Survivor 652
A War Worth Fighting 661
Just Give Peace a Chance? 669
W G. Sebald: Requiem for Germany 673
Words' Worth
When the King Saved God 687
Let Them Eat Pork Rinds 697
Stand Up for Denmark! 704
Eschew the Taboo 709
She's No Fundamentalist 712
Burned Out 716
Easter Charade 719
Don't Mince Words 722
History and Mystery 726
Words Matter 730
This Was Not Looting 733
This Other L-Word 736
The You Decade 739
Suck It Up 742
A Very, Very Dirty Word 745
Prisoner of Shelves 748
Acknowledgments 751
Index 753
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