New York City, September 27, 2004
God and Religion: Divine Treasure or Poisonous Bilge?
A Debate between Shmuley Boteach and Hitchens at the 92nd St. Y
"Some see religion and conceptions of "God" as intellectually obscene, life-wasting narcotics for mind-torched whack jobs. They question the very morality of exposing young people to religious "ideas" before they've had a clear shot at apprehending vital tools like reason, irony, and skepticism. To them, religion's blood-drenched past and present only hint at the death-apalooza to come in the era of exploding cellphones. Faith - the unalterable belief in the unverifiable - solicits flocks of feeble, desperate lemmings to further deaden their precarious psyches via dangerous fairytales. Religious adherence yields docility - why worry and toil for the Earth's health when much better worlds await after the funeral? For the good of both believers and the enlightened, benevolence demands that illusions of "God" are aggressively vanquished, and that all faiths are eventually and triumphantly diagnosed as primitive and backward. Toleration, however noble in origin, must be sacrificed at survival's altar."
"Not So Swift: John Kerry's dubious Vietnam revisionism"
(Slate, 8.23.04)
"Supersize Me" by Dana Stevens aka
Liz Penn (Slate, 8.6.04)
The Christopher Hitchens Reader
coming in October
"Polymath with a Cause" (Washington Post, 8.15.04)
"Taking the Measure of John Kerry" (New York Times, 8.15.04)
"Chalabi Strikes Back: A counterfeit charge considered." (Slate, 8.11.04)
"The Immortal" (book review of new biography of
Jorge Louis Borges, The Atlantic, September 2004)
Hitchens on Late Night Live with Phillip Adams (8.9.04)
"Safe Cracking: The silliness of security alerts."
(Slate, 8.6.04)
"Just Skimming Texas Means Considerable" by Alessandra Stanley
(New York Times, 8.6.04)
"Firehouse Rot: John Kerry's cheapest shot."
(Slate, 7.30.04)
"It happened, Mr Adams"
(The Australian, 7.30.04)
"Just a pretty face?" by Sean O'Hagan
(Observer, 7.11.04)
interview with Lateline (7.26.04)
"Edward's Good Number Two for Kerry"
(Mirror, 7.7.04)
use PayPal to buy Hitchens a drink
"Plame's Lame Game: What Ambassador Joseph Wilson and his wife forgot to tell us about the yellow-cake scandal."
(Slate, 7.13.04)
"Critical Reception: The Meaning of Farenheit 9/11"
by Irfan Khawaja (I.S.I.S, 7.12.04)
"The Teetotal Effect" (Vanity Fair, August 2004)
"America's Poet?" (Weekly Standard, July 5/July 12, 2004)
Hitchens on Bush's fun-loving daughters (scroll down)
"A Very, Very Dirty Word:
The British Empire's second-greatest gift to the world."
(Slate, 7.6.04)
transcript of Hitchens on CNN
"Saddam invulnerable? We'll see about that"
(Mirror, 7.2.04)
"This film couldn't be Moore wrong" (Mirror, 6.30.04)
"Deadline for his life inched away" (Mirror, 6.19.04)
"Cruel legacy of war" (Mirror, 6.28.04)
"Unfairenheit 9/11: The lies of Michael Moore."
(Slate, 6.21.04)
Hitchens will be a regular on Tucker Carlson's new show
Blood, Class and Empire: The Enduring Anglo-American Relationship
is now available in a new edition.
"A Moral Chernobyl: Prepare for the worst of Abu Ghraib."
(Slate, 6.14.04)
"Impossible to Hate Lying Crook Reagan"
(Mirror, 6.7.04)
"Abuse Pictures" (BBC, 5.10.04)
CSPAN Washington Journal video (6.1.04)
"Not Even a Hedgehog: The stupidity of Ronald Reagan"
(Slate, 6.7.04)
"The Old Man" (The Atlantic, July/August 2004)
"Rumble on the Right" (Vanity Fair, July 2004)
letter to editor from Nader's campaign manager
also see page 100. Wonder if he chatted with
Eddie Izzard
"Ahmad and Me: Defending Chalabi." (Slate, 5.27.04)
Transcript of Hitchens in Scarborough Country (5.19.04)
"What went wrong: the flaw in Seymour Hersh's theory"
(Slate, 5.18.04)
Irfan Khawaja piece from the History News Network
"Joyce in Bloom" (Vanity Fair, June 2004)
"Young Men in Shorts" (Atlantic Monthly, June 2004)
"Prison Mutiny: What the torturers of Abu Ghraib have wrought."
(Slate, 5.4.04)
"Covering the "Quagmire": Are war correspondents betting on failure in Iraq?"
(Slate, 4.29.04)
"Believe It or Not: Making a patriotic case for those of little faith."
(Washington Post, April 25, 2004)
video of LA Times Book Festival debate
"Beyond Orwell?" By Jennifer Verner (FrontPageMagazine.com, April 28, 2004)
audio of Hitchens debating Scott Lucas
"Second Thinking: What I got wrong about Iraq."
(Slate, 4.19.04)
"Poor Old Willie" (Atlantic Monthly, May 2004)
"Christopher Hitchens and the Issue of Faith"
by George Shadroui (IntellectualConservative.com, 22 March, 2004)
"Vietnam? - Why the analogy doens't hold water" (Slate, 4.12.04)
Johann Hari reviews Scott Lucas's book
praise for "Omnium Gatherum" Old Hag, 4.5.04
(Haven't seen it, but
here's another review)
"Unsafe On Any Ballot" (Vanity Fair, May 2004)
Caracas Chronicles weblog (4.4.04)
"Fallujah: A reminder of what the future might look like if we fail."
(Wall Street Journal, 4.4.05)
"Clarke's Progress: Guess who used to believe in
the Iraq/al-Qaida connection?" (Slate, 3.29.04)
"The West and the worst" (The Globe and Mail, 3.27.04)
"Road to Damascus: The Kurds nominate Syria for regime change."
(Slate, 2.22.04)
"Reactionary Prophet" (Atlantic, April 2004)
"To Die in Madrid: The nutty logic that says Spain provoked Islamist terrorism."
(Slate, 3.15.04)
Hitchens in Scarborough Country (scroll down, 3.11.04)
"Why Kerry Isn't the Man to Beat Bush" (Mirror, Mar 8 2004)
"What's so funny about peace, love, understanding?" by
Alexander Blanco (The Beacon, 3.8.04)
"Mel Gibson Forgives Us for His Sins"
by Frank Rich (New York Times, 3.7.04)
"The Married State" (Wall Street Journal, 3.3.04)
"Schlock, Yes; Awe, No; Fascism, Probably:
The flogging Mel Gibson demands."
(Slate, February 27, 2004)
"I Detest this Film ... with a Passion" (Mirror, 2.27.04)
"Less than Miraculous" (February-March 2004, Free Inquiry)
"Hitchens weighs Haiti, Iraq in US presidential race"
by Tony Jones (Lateline, 2.26.04)
"Christopher Hitchens explains why left is not right"
by Craig Whitney (Daily Campus, 2.26.04)
"Hitchens prepares Jefferson dissection"
by Kathleen Lavey (Lansing State Journal, 1.20.04)
video from CSPAN's Washington Journal (2.20.04)
Hitchens wrote the introduction to
the new double-edition of Animal Farm and 1984
and also to
The Adventures of Augie March
"Great Scot" (The Atlantic, March 2004)
"The Vietnam Syndrome, Again:
The mistake Democrats make when they compare
Iraq to Vietnam." (Slate, 2.16.04)
"A Good Cheap Book:
Christopher Hitchens, A Long Short War: The Postponed Liberation of Iraq"
by Irfan Khawaja (Institute for the Secularisation of Islamic Society)
"The Liberal Hawks" by James Verini
(Los Angeles City Beat, 2.14.04)
videos of lectures on Jefferson and American Empire
(at Michigan State, Jan. 21-22, 2004, Feb. 11-12 to come)
"Goobye to all that: why Americans are not taught history." (Harpers, November 1998)
interview with Mark Grueter (Me Three, 2004)
Part One
Part Two
"Narcissist and Windbag" (Wall Street Journal,
2.11.04)
review of A Long Short War by Nathan Alexander
(Intellectual Conservative, 12 February 2004)
"The Gospel According to Mel" (Vanity Fair, March 2004)
"All Against Bush: Whom should the Democrats nominate?"
(Slate, 2.8.04)
"Iraqi realities, American dilemmas: a New York debate"
by James Westcott (openDemocracy, 5 - 2 - 2004)
critical account of New School debate (Aspasia, 2.2.04)
account of New School debate by Rajeev Advani
(Full Context, 1.31.04)
Hitchens's new Vanity Fair column will about
Mel Gibson's movie (scroll down)
transcript and audio from the Tavis Smiley show (1.29.04)
"A Tale of Two Reports" (Slate, 1.30.04)
"The Acutest Ear in Paris" (The Atlantic, January/February 2004)
audio of Hitchens on Indonesia
"Liberal Hawks Reconsider the Iraq War" (dialogue with
Paul Berman, Thomas Friedman, Hitchens, Fred Kaplan, George
Packer, Kenneth M. Pollack, Jacob Weisberg, and Fareed Zakaria)
(Slate, 1.12.04 - 1.16.04)
"I Fought the Law" (Vanity Fair, February 2004)
"'Allies': The Good War?" by James Traub
(New York Times Book Review, 1.11.04)
"People prefer their bias straight" By Jeff Dufour
(The Hill, 1.7.04)
Hitchens fighting The Man in NYC
"Journalist Makes Himself a Menace to Mayor’s Polite Society"
by Dina Temple-Raston (New York Sun, 1.6.04)
"Vanity Fair Writer Takes On City Rules" By Glenn Thrush
(New York Newsday, 1.5.04)
A few words of fraternal admonition to "Norm" Finkelstein
which is a riposte to
this essay on Finkelstein's website
"Printing Nonsense" By Arnold Beichman
(National Review, 6.9.03)
Hitchens's response
Hitchens's response to Blumenthal's new book "The Clinton Wars"
"Thinking Like an Apparatchik" (The Atlantic, July/August 2003)
older links have been moved
here.
Studs Terkel's letter to The Nation found in
the January 6th, 2003 issue
Hitchens's letter to The Nation in response
Hitchens's open letter to readers and letter
exchange with Victor Navasky
Hitchens wrote the introduction to
the new double-edition of Animal Farm and 1984
and also to
The Adventures of Augie March
Left Hooks, Right Crosses: A Decade of Political Writing
is now available
He has an essay in
On Modern British Fiction, edited by
Zachary Leader
Orwell's Victory is available in the UK
Why Orwell Matters now available in the States
Stephen Jay Gould edited The Best American Essays 2002 and included
Hitchens's Vanity Fair essay "For Patriot Dreams"
The Trial of Henry Kissinger is now available
in paperback with an updated intro.
He has a piece in the
Saddam Hussein Reader
Hitchens has written introductions for
David R. Dow and Mark Dow's
Machinery of Death: The Reality of America's Death Penalty Regime
Hitchens writes for
Slate and The Daily Mirror
and is a contributing editor to
The Atlantic Monthly and
to Vanity Fair.
Here, you can find a brief
biography at The Nation website.
He contributes to such publications as
Critical Quarterly,
Foreign Policy,
Free Inquiry,
The Globe and Mail,
Granta,
Grand Street,
The London Review of Books,
Harper's,
The Los Angeles Times Book Review,
New Left Review,
Newsweek International,
The New York Observer,
The New York Review of Books,
The New York Times Book Review,
The Times Literary Supplement,
The Wall Street Journal,
the Washington Post, and
the Weekly Standard.
On television, Hitchens sometimes appears on
Hardball with Chris Matthews,
Charlie Rose,
Uncommon Knowledge,
The Chris Matthews Show,
Real Time with Bill Maher,
The Tavis Smiley Show,
and CSPAN's
Washington Journal.
Hitchens has been a visiting professor at the
University of California, Berkeley,
the University of Pittsburgh, and the
New School of Social Research.
Mr. Hitchens was born in Portsmouth, England and educated at the Leys School,
Cambridge, and Balliol College, Oxford, where he read Philosophy, Politics, and
Economics. From 1971-1981, he worked in Britain as book reviewer for the Times;
social science editor of the Times Higher Education Supplement; assistant editor
and staff writer for the New Statesman; researcher/reporter for London Weekend
Television; and chief foreign correspondent for the Daily Expresss. In 1981, he
emigrated to the United States.
From 1982-2002, he wrote a column called the "Minority Report" for the Nation.
Since 1992, he has been columnist and contributing editor at Vanity Fair and, at
different times, Washington editor and columnist for Harpers magazine, American
columnist and correspondent for the Spectator (London), the New Statesman
(London), the Times Literary Supplement (London), Sunday Today (London), and the
Sunday Correspondent (London). As foreign correspondent and travel writer, he
has written from more than sixty countries on all five continents.
