Bøger af Christopher Hitchens

A witty, wise, biting, and completely individual meditation on what it means to think, live, and be to the contrary.

A provocative and entertaining guided tour of atheist and agnostic thought through the ages selected by bestselling author Christopher Hitchens

The provocative bestseller from Britain's foremost controversial thinker is now in paperback: 'If Hitchens didn't exist, we wouldn't be able to invent him.' Ian McEwan

In this frank and damning exposé of the Teresa cult, Hitchens details the nature and limits of one woman's mission to help the world's poor. He probes the source of the heroic status bestowed upon an Albanian nun whose only declared wish was to serve God. He asks whether Mother Teresa's good works answered any higher purpose than the need of the world's privileged to see someone, somewhere, doing something for the Third World. He 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. Is Mother Teresa merely an essential salve to the conscience of the rich West, or an expert PR machine for the Catholic Church? In its caustic iconoclasm and unsparing wit, The Missionary Position showcases the devastating effect of Hitchens' writing at its polemical best.

Den 8. juni 2010 faldt Christopher Hitchens om på sit hotelværelse i New York med stærke smerter. Med ét så han sig selv blive bragt fra ”de raskes verden over den skarpt optrukne grænse til sygdommens land”. I løbet af de følgende 18 måneder, frem til sin død af kræft i spiserøret den 15. december 2011, skrev han om sine oplevelser i de døendes rige.Under hele forløbet insisterer Hitchens på at modsætte sig religionens trøst og møde døden med åbne øjne. I DØDELIGHED beskriver han sygdommens plager, diskuterer dens tabuer og undersøger, hvordan sygdom ændrer vores forhold til omverdenen. I takt med at kræften invaderer Hitchens krop – han opdager pludselig, at han ikke har en krop, men er en krop – tvinges han til at tage livtag med dødens gåde.DØDELIGHED er en både personlig og filosofisk bog om til det sidste at insistere på fornuften.”Hvad håber jeg på? Hvis ikke en kur, så i hvert fald en lindring. Og hvad vil jeg have tilbage? Med den smukkest tænkelige sammenstilling af to af de enkleste ord i vores sprog: talefriheden.” - fra bogen

Nominated for the National Book Critics Circle AwardThe acid, hilarious, confessional, provocative bestselling memoirs of our greatest contrarian, and the author of god Is Not Great. 'If Hitchens didn't exist, we wouldn't be able to invent him.' Ian McEwan

“An extended spa treatment that stretches tired brains and unkinks the usual habitual responses where Hitchens is concerned.” —James Wolcott in his introduction  An outstanding new collection, A HITCH IN TIME is a must have for Hitchens completists and the perfect starting point for understanding one of the most brilliant essayists of all time. Anthologized here for the first time, A HITCH IN TIME is a choice selection of Christopher Hitchens’s finest reviews, diary entries and essays - along with a smattering of ferocious letters. Familiar bêtes noires—Kennedy, Nixon, Kissinger, Clinton—rub shoulders with lesser-known preoccupations: P.G. Wodehouse, Princess Margaret and, magisterially, Isaiah Berlin. A HITCH IN TIME is a banquet of entertaining stories ranging from his thoughts on Salman Rushdie to being spanked by Margaret Thatcher in The House of Lords and the night he took his son to the Oscars. The broad scope and high caliber of Hitchens’ essays allows his work to transcend the occasion for which it was written and continues to be essential reading.  Along with an introduction by James Wolcott, A HITCH IN TIME recaptures the brilliance of Hitchens - barnstorming, cauterizing, and ultimately uncontainable.

On June 8, 2010, while on a book tour for his bestselling memoir, Hitch-22, Christopher Hitchens was stricken in his New York hotel room with excruciating pain in his chest and thorax. As he would later write in the first of a series of award-winning columns for Vanity Fair, he suddenly found himself being deported "e;from the country of the well across the stark frontier that marks off the land of malady."e; Over the next eighteen months, until his death in Houston on December 15, 2011, he wrote constantly and brilliantly on politics and culture, astonishing readers with his capacity for superior work even in extremis.Throughout the course of his ordeal battling esophageal cancer, Hitchens adamantly and bravely refused the solace of religion, preferring to confront death with both eyes open. In this riveting account of his affliction, Hitchens poignantly describes the torments of illness, discusses its taboos, and explores how disease transforms experience and changes our relationship to the world around us. By turns personal and philosophical, Hitchens embraces the full panoply of human emotions as cancer invades his body and compels him to grapple with the enigma of death.MORTALITY is the exemplary story of one man's refusal to cower in the face of the unknown, as well as a searching look at the human predicament. Crisp and vivid, veined throughout with penetrating intelligence, Hitchens's testament is a courageous and lucid work of literature, an affirmation of the dignity and worth of man.

Based on the "Be it resolved, religion is a force for good in the world" Munk debate held on November 26, 2010.

Put two contrarians together and shake well.-Christianity TodayThe gloves come off in this electric exchange, originally hosted by Christianity Today, as leading atheist Christopher Hitchens (author of God Is Not Great) and Christian apologist Douglas Wilson (author of Letter from a Christian Citizen) go head-to-head on this divisive question. The result is entertaining and provocative-a glimpse into the ongoing debate.

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—a man conflicted by power who wrote the Declaration of Independence and acted as ambassador to France yet yearned for a quieter career in the Virginia legislature. A masterly writer, Jefferson was an awkward public speaker. A professed proponent of emancipation, he elided the issue of slavery from the Declaration of Independence and continued to own human property. A reluctant candidate, he left an indelible presidential legacy. With intelligence, insight, eloquence, and wit, Hitchens gives us an artful portrait of a complex, formative figure and his turbulent era.

Christopher 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 Angloshpere's 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.'A good liar must have a good memory: Kissinger is a stupendous liar with a remarkable memory.' Christopher Hitchens

In this vitriolic polemic, Christopher Hitchens takes on the myth surrounding one of the most divisive political figures in American political history: Bill Clinton.

And 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.

A beautifully written introduction to the making, and message, of a book that was central to the foundation of the United States - the world's most powerful republic: 'Christopher Hitchens... at his characteristically incisive best.' (The Times)

In 2007, Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and Daniel Dennett filmed a landmark discussion about modern atheism. The video went viral. Now in print for the first time, the transcript of their conversation is illuminated by new essays from three of the original participants and an introduction by Stephen Fry. At the dawn of the new atheist movement, the thinkers who became known as ';the four horsemen,' the heralds of religion's unravelingChristopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and Daniel Dennettsat down together over cocktails. What followed was a rigorous, pathbreaking, and enthralling exchange, which has been viewed millions of times since it was first posted on YouTube. This is intellectual inquiry at its best: exhilarating, funny, and unpredictable, sincere and probing, reminding us just how varied and colorful the threads of modern atheism are. Here is the transcript of that conversation, in print for the first time, augmented by material from the living participants: Dawkins, Harris, and Dennett. These new essays, introduced by Stephen Fry, mark the evolution of their thinking and highlight particularly resonant aspects of this epic exchange. Each man contends with the most fundamental questions of human existence while challenging the others to articulate their own stance on God and religion, cultural criticism, spirituality, debate with people of faith, and the components of a truly ethical life.Praise for The Four Horsemen ';This bracing exchange of ideas crackles with energy. It's fascinating to watch four first-class minds explore a rugged intellectual terrain. . . . The text affords a different, more reflective way of processing the truly vital exchange of ideas. . . . I commend the book to those seeking an honest reckoning with their religionand those curious about how the world looks from a rigorously naturalistic and atheistic point of view.'Pittsburgh Post-Gazette ';The full, electrifying transcript of the one and only conversation between the quartet of luminaries dubbed the ';four horsemen' of the New Atheism, which took place in Washington, D.C., in 2007. Among the vast range of ideas and questions they discuss: Is it ever possible to win a war of ideas? Is spirituality the preserve of the religious? And, are there any truths you would rather not know?'The Bookseller (UK) (starred review)

"e;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."e;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, "e;including conspiracy to commit murder, kidnap, and torture."e;With the precision and tenacity of a prosecutor, Hitchens offers an unrepentant portrait of a felonious diplomat who "e;maintained that laws were like cobwebs,"e; and implores governments around the world, including our own, to bring him swiftly to justice.

@font-face { font-family: "e;Cambria"e;; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0in 0in 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: "e;Times New Roman"e;; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; } "e;All first-rate criticism first defines what we are confronting,"e; 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 skepticism that define and inform the foundations of our civilization-principles that, to endure, must be defended anew by every generation. "e;A short list of the greatest living conversationalists in English,"e; said The Economist, "e;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."e; 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 traveling and reporting from such destinations as Iran, China, and Pakistan. Hitchens's directness, elegance, lightly carried erudition, critical and psychological insight, humor, 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.

"e;A religious fundamentalist, a political operative, a primitive sermonizer, and an accomplice of worldly secular powers. Her mission has always been of this kind. The irony is that she has never been able to induce anybody to believe her. It is past time that she was duly honored and taken at her word."e;Among his many books, perhaps none have sparked more outrage than THE MISSIONARY POSITION, Christopher Hitchens's meticulous study of the life and deeds of Mother Teresa. A Nobel Peace Prize recipient beatified by the Catholic Church in 2003, Mother Teresa of Calcutta was celebrated by heads of state and adored by millions for her work on behalf of the poor. In his measured critique, Hitchens asks only that Mother Teresa's reputation be judged by her actions-not the other way around.With characteristic lan and rhetorical dexterity, Hitchens eviscerates the fawning cult of Teresa, recasting the Albanian missionary as a spurious, despotic, and megalomaniacal operative of the wealthy who long opposed measures to end poverty, and fraternized, for financial gain, with tyrants and white-collar criminals throughout the world.

"e;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."e; 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, "e;divide and rule"e; identity politics, and populist manipulations-these are perhaps Clinton's greatest and most enduring legacies.

Whether you're a lifelong believer, a devout atheist, or someone who remains uncertain about the role of religion in our lives, this insightful manifesto will engage you with its provocative ideas.With a close and studied reading of the major religious texts, Christopher Hitchens 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.In the tradition of Bertrand Russell's Why I Am Not a Christian and Sam Harris's The End of Faith, Christopher Hitchens makes the ultimate case against religion.

A celebration of writers and their encounters with politics and public life from one of our greatest critics