num_pages: 141
description: In the book that he was possibly born to write, provocateur and bestselling author Christopher Hitchens inspires future generations of radicals, gadflies, mavericks, rebels, angry young (wo)men and dissidents. Who better to speak to that person pitched at an angle of passionate disagreement against the lazy consensus than Hitchens, who has made a career of disagreeing in profound and entertaining ways?This book explores the entire range of "contrary positions," invoking mentors such as Emile Zola, Rosa Parks and Václav Havel. What they have in common is a commitment to living and thinking, right now, in a society not as it is but as it might be. Hitchens bemoans the loss of the skills of dialectical thinking evident in contemporary society and the sacrifice of true irony, satire and other forms of critical style. He understands the importance of disagreement—to personal integrity, to informed discussion, to true progress—to democracy itself.Letters to a Young Contrarian is part of the series, "The Art of Mentoring," based on Rainer Maria Rilke's 
  Letters to a Young Poet
. Like the text it emulates, the series invites leaders of the arts, vocations, professions, obsessions and missions to contribute a text meant to shape the future of their disciplines and to inspire the careers of the next generation and generations after that.
language: English
title: Letters to a Young Contrarian
titlecomplete: Letters to a Young Contrarian
characters: Henry Kissinger, Bertrand Russell, Thabo Mbeki, Christopher Hitchens, Susan Sontag, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Rainer Maria Rilke, Noam Chomsky, Ayn Rand, Smike, E.P. Thompson, Nicholas Nickleby, Ronald Ridenhour, Diana Frances Spencer, Princess of Wales, Émile Zola, Adam Michnik, Salman Rushdie, George Orwell
genres: Religion, Biography, Politics, Atheism, Philosophy, Memoir, Nonfiction, Essays, Journalism, History
ratings_count: 11841
publisher: Basic Books