Christopher Hitchens

**Christopher Eric Hitchens** (13 April 1949 – 15 December 2011) was an Anglo-American atheist, writer and debater. He wrote for various magazines including *The Nation*, *Free Inquiry*, *Slate*, and others.  He was a supporter of the  movement humanism.

Hitchens was educated at Balliol College, Oxford. After graduation in 1970, he became a magazine writer. In 1982, he moved to Washington, D.C. In 1988, he learned from his grandmother that his mother was Jewish, but had kept her religion a secret.  Hitchens remained an atheist and did not adopt any religious faith. He did not write about his religious views until his 2007 book *God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything.*

Hitchens tried to write from first-hand experience.  To write his essays, he braved gunfire in Sarajevo, he was jailed in Czechoslovakia, and in 2008, he was brutally beaten in Beirut, Lebanon. In 2009, Hitchens agreed to be waterboarded. He wrote in *Vanity Fair* magazine, "If waterboarding does not constitute torture then there is no such thing as torture".

Hitchens died of oesophageal cancer.

## Books by Hitchens 
* 1984 *Cyprus*. Quartet. Revised editions as *Hostage to history: Cyprus from the Ottomans to Kissinger*, 1989.
* 1988 *Blaming the Victims: spurious scholarship and the Palestinian question*. (contributor, and co-editor with Edward Said) Verso, 
* 1990 *The Monarchy*, Chatto & Windus
* 1990 *Blood, class and nostalgia: Anglo-American ironies*, Farrar Straus & Giroux.
* 1995 *The missionary position: Mother Teresa in theory and practice*, Verso
* 1997 *The Parthenon marbles: the case for reunification*, Verso
* 1999 *No one left to lie to: the values of the worst family*, Verso
* 2000 *Unacknowledged legislation: writers in the public sphere*, Verso
* 2001 *The trial of Henry Kissinger*. Verso.
* 2001 *Letters to a young contrarian*, Basic Books
* 2002 *Why Orwell matters* also ''Orwell's Victory*, Basic Books, 
* 2004 *Love, poverty, and war: journeys and essays'', Thunder's Mouth, Nation Books. 
* 2005 *Thomas Jefferson: author of America*. Eminent Lives/Atlas Books/HarperCollins Publishers, 
* 2007 ''Thomas Paine's Rights of Man: a biography*. Atlantic Monthly Press, 
* 2007 *The Portable Atheist: essential readings for the non-believer*. (Editor) Perseus Publishing. . https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0306816083/ref=pd_lpo_k2_dp_sr_2?pf_rd_p=486539851&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe-1&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=0446579807&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=1QP0FHNTZGAPNAPRAANP
* 2007 *God is not great: how religion poisons everything*, Twelve/Hachette Book Group USA/Warner Books,  / Published in the UK as *God is not great: the case against religion*, Atlantic Books, . http://www.hachettebookgroup.com/books_9780446579803.htm 
* 2008 *Christopher Hitchens and his critics: terror, Iraq and the Left*. (with Simon Cottee and Thomas Cushman), New York University Press
* 2008 *Is Christianity good for the world?—A Debate* (co-author, with theologian Douglas Wilson). Canon Press. . http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Is-Christianity-Good-for-the-World/Christopher-Hitchens/e/9781591280538 
* 2010 *Hitch-22: a memoir*, Twelve.  
* 2011 *Arguably: essays by Christopher Hitchens*. Twelve. UK edition as *Arguably: selected prose*, Atlantic,  / 
* 2012 *Mortality''. Twelve,  / . Atlantic Books,  / 

## References
## Other websites
*The Christopher Hitchens Web
*