Download or read book Letters to a Young Contrarian written by Christopher Hitchens and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2009-04-28 with total page 159 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From bestselling author and provocateur Christopher Hitchens, the classic guide to the art of principled dissent and disagreement In Letters to a Young Contrarian, bestselling author and world-class provocateur Christopher Hitchens inspires the radicals, gadflies, mavericks, rebels, and angry young (wo)men of tomorrow. Exploring the entire range of "contrary positions"—from noble dissident to gratuitous nag—Hitchens introduces the next generation to the minds and the misfits who influenced him, invoking such mentors as Emile Zola, Rosa Parks, and George Orwell. As is his trademark, Hitchens pointedly pitches himself in contrast to stagnant attitudes across the ideological spectrum. No other writer has matched Hitchens's understanding of the importance of disagreement—to personal integrity, to informed discussion, to true progress, to democracy itself.
Download or read book Letters to a Young Contrarian written by Christopher Hitchens and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2005-04-13 with total page 160 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the book that he was born to write, provocateur and best-selling author Christopher Hitchens inspires future generations of radicals, gadflies, mavericks, rebels, angry young (wo)men, and dissidents. Who better to speak to that person who finds him or herself in a contrarian position than Hitchens, who has made a career of disagreeing in profound and entertaining ways.This book explores the entire range of "contrary positions"-from noble dissident to gratuitous pain in the butt. In an age of overly polite debate bending over backward to reach a happy consensus within an increasingly centrist political dialogue, Hitchens pointedly pitches himself in contrast. He bemoans the loss of the skills of dialectical thinking evident in contemporary society. He understands the importance of disagreement-to personal integrity, to informed discussion, to true progress-heck, to democracy itself. Epigrammatic, spunky, witty, in your face, timeless and timely, this book is everything you would expect from a mentoring contrarian.
Download or read book Why Orwell Matters written by Christopher Hitchens and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2008-08-06 with total page 140 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Hitchens presents a George Orwell fit for the twenty-first century." --Boston Globe In this widely acclaimed biographical essay, the masterful polemicist Christopher Hitchens assesses the life, the achievements, and the myth of the great political writer and participant George Orwell. True to his contrarian style, Hitchens is both admiring and aggressive, sympathetic yet critical, taking true measure of his subject as hero and problem. Answering both the detractors and the false claimants, Hitchens tears down the façade of sainthood erected by the hagiographers and rebuts the critics point by point. He examines Orwell and his perspectives on fascism, empire, feminism, and Englishness, as well as his outlook on America, a country and culture toward which he exhibited much ambivalence. Whether thinking about empires or dictators, race or class, nationalism or popular culture, Orwell's moral outlook remains indispensable in a world that has undergone vast changes in the seven decades since his death. Combining the best of Hitchens' polemical punch and intellectual elegance in a tightly woven and subtle argument, this book addresses not only why Orwell matters today, but how he will continue to matter in a future, uncertain world.
Download or read book Microcosmographia Academica Being a Guide for the Young Academic Politician written by Francis Macdonald Cornford and published by . This book was released on 1923 with total page 70 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Burning Forest written by Nandini Sandar and published by Verso Books. This book was released on 2019-04-09 with total page 433 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An empathetic, moving account of what drives indigenous peasants to support armed struggle despite severe state repression, including lives lost, and homes and communities destroyed Over the past decade, the heavily forested, mineral-rich region of Bastar in central India has emerged as one of the most militarized sites in the country. The government calls the Maoist insurgency the “biggest security threat” to India. In 2005, a state-sponsored vigilante movement, the Salwa Judum, burned hundreds of villages, driving their inhabitants into state-controlled camps, drawing on counterinsurgency techniques developed in Malaysia, Vietnam and elsewhere. Apart from rapes and killings, hundreds of “surrendered” Maoist sympathizers were conscripted as auxiliaries. The conflict continues to this day, taking a toll on the lives of civilians, security forces and Maoist cadres. In 2007, Sundar and others took the Indian government to the Supreme Court over the human rights violations arising out of the conflict. In a landmark judgment in 2011 the court banned state support for vigilantism. The Burning Forest describes this brutal war in the heart of India, and what it tells us about the courts, media and politics of the country. The result is a fascinating critical account of Indian democracy.
Download or read book Mortality written by Christopher Hitchens and published by Atlantic Books Ltd. This book was released on 2012-08-25 with total page 84 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The world's greatest contrarian confronts his own death in this brave and unforgettable book. During the American book tour for his memoir, Hitch-22, Christopher Hitchens collapsed in his hotel room with excruciating pain in his chest. As he would later write in the first of a series of deeply moving Vanity Fair pieces, he was being deported 'from the country of the well across the stark frontier that marks off the land of malady.' Over the next year he experienced the full force of modern cancer treatment. Mortality is at once an unsparingly honest account of the ravages of his disease, an examination of cancer etiquette, and the coda to a lifetime of fierce debate and peerless prose. In this moving personal account of illness, Hitchens confronts his own death - and he is combative and dignified, eloquent and witty to the very last.
Download or read book And Yet written by Christopher Hitchens and published by . This book was released on 2016-01-07 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This collection of essays brings together some of the finest pieces Hitchens published over the last two decades for the first time in one book, addressing with characteristic wit and erudition the subjects he is best known for, including: the case against God, faith and religious observance; the case for intervention in Iraq; indictments of towering political figures like Bill and Hillary Clinton, Tony Blair, and Henry Kissinger; and celebrations of the writers and thinkers whose work meant most to him"--
Download or read book God Is Not Great written by Christopher Hitchens and published by McClelland & Stewart. This book was released on 2008-11-19 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Christopher Hitchens, described in the London Observer as “one of the most prolific, as well as brilliant, journalists of our time” takes on his biggest subject yet–the increasingly dangerous role of religion in the world. In the tradition of Bertrand Russell’s Why I Am Not a Christian and Sam Harris’s recent bestseller, The End Of Faith, Christopher Hitchens makes the ultimate case against religion. With a close and erudite reading of the major religious texts, he 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.
Download or read book Hater written by John Semley and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2018-10-23 with total page 152 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A timely manifesto urging us to think critically, form opinions, and then argue them with gusto. Hater begins from a simple premise: that it's good to hate things. Not people or groups or benign belief systems, but things. More to the point, it's good to hate the things everyone seems to like. Scan the click-baiting headlines of your favorite news or pop-culture website and you're likely to find that just about everything is, supposedly, "what we need right now." We are the victims of an unbridled, unearned optimism. And our world demands pessimism. It's vital to be contrarian--now, as they say, more than ever. Because ours is an age of calcified consensus. And we should all hate that. In this scathing and funny rebuke of the status quo, journalist John Semley illustrates that looking for and identifying nonsense isn't just a useful exercise for society, it's also a lot of fun. But Hater doesn't just skewer terrible TV shows and hit songs--at its core it shows us how to meaningfully talk about and engage with culture, and the world. Ultimately, Hater is what we actually need right now.
Download or read book A Long Short War written by Christopher Hitchens and published by Plume. This book was released on 2003 with total page 116 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of our most respected and controversial liberal thinkers makes the case for war in Iraq. Written in his trademark contrarian voice, Untitled on Iraq is comprised of Hitchens' essays on the justification for war in Iraq and other related issues written for Slate.com, The Wall Street Journal, The Nation, and more, as well as 25% new material on the war
Download or read book Love Poverty and War written by Christopher Hitchens and published by Atlantic Books Ltd. This book was released on 2012-08-01 with total page 505 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this sweeping collection of essays, reportage and criticism, Hitchens' polemical talents at their most fearsome. "I did not, I wish to state, become a journalist because there was no other 'profession' that would have me. I became a journalist because I did not want to rely on newspapers for information." Love, Poverty and War: Journeys and Essays showcases the Hitchens' rejection of consensus and cliché, whether he's reporting from abroad in Indonesia, Kurdistan, Iraq, North Korea, or Cuba, or when his pen is targeted mercilessly at the likes of William Clinton, Mother Theresa ("a fanatic, a fundamentalist and a fraud"), the Dalai Lama, Noam Chomsky, Mel Gibson and Michael Bloomberg. Hitchens began the nineties as a "darling of the left" but has become more of an "unaffiliated radical" whose targets include those on the "left," who he accuses of "fudging" the issue of military intervention in the Balkans, Afghanistan and Iraq. Yet, as Hitchens shows in his reportage, cultural and literary criticism, and opinion essays from the last decade, he has not jumped ship and joined the right but is faithful to the internationalist, contrarian and democratic ideals that have always informed his work.
Download or read book Here Comes Trouble written by Michael Moore and published by Grand Central Publishing. This book was released on 2011-09-13 with total page 286 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: #1 New York Times bestselling author Michael Moore returns with his first major book in eight years -- a blend of memoir, history, and politics that only he could write. "I had an unusually large-sized head, though this was not uncommon for a baby in the Midwest. The craniums in our part of the country were designed to leave a little extra room for the brain to grow in case one day we found ourselves exposed to something we didn't understand, like a foreign language, or a salad." Michael Moore-Oscar-winning filmmaker, bestselling author, the nation's unofficial provocateur laureate-is back, this time taking on an entirely new role, that of his own meta-Forest Gump. Breaking the autobiographical mode, he presents twenty-four far-ranging, irreverent, and stranger-than-fiction vignettes from his own early life. One moment he's an eleven-year-old boy lost in the Senate and found by Bobby Kennedy; and in the next, he's inside the Bitburg cemetery with a dazed and confused Ronald Reagan. Fast-forwarding to 2003, he stuns the world by uttering the words "We live in fictitious times . . . with a fictitious president" in place of the expected "I'd like to thank the Academy." And none of that even comes close to the night the friendly priest at the seminary decides to show him how to perform his own exorcism. Capturing the zeitgeist of the past fifty years, yet deeply personal and unflinchingly honest, Here Comes Trouble takes readers on an unforgettable, take-no-prisoners ride through the life and times of Michael Moore. No one will come away from this book without a sense of surprise about the Michael Moore most of us didn't know. Alternately funny, eye-opening, and moving, it's a book he has been writing-and living-his entire life.
Download or read book Fake Accounts written by Lauren Oyler and published by Catapult. This book was released on 2021-02-02 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A NATIONAL BESTSELLER * A NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW EDITORS’ CHOICE * A WASHINGTON POST BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR "An invigorating work, deadly precise in its skewering of people, places and things . . . Stylish, despairing and very funny, Fake Accounts . . . adroitly maps the dwindling gap between the individual and the world." —Katie Kitamura, The New York Times Book Review A woman in a tailspin discovers that her boyfriend is an anonymous online conspiracy theorist in this “absolutely brilliant take on the bizarre and despicable ways the internet has warped our perception of reality” (Elle, One of the Most Anticipated Books of the Year). On the eve of Donald Trump's inauguration, a young woman snoops through her boyfriend's phone and makes a startling discovery: he's an anonymous internet conspiracy theorist, and a popular one at that. Already fluent in internet fakery, irony, and outrage, she's not exactly shocked by the revelation. Actually, she's relieved--he was always a little distant--and she plots to end their floundering relationship while on a trip to the Women's March in DC. But this is only the first in a series of bizarre twists that expose a world whose truths are shaped by online lies. Suddenly left with no reason to stay in New York and increasingly alienated from her friends and colleagues, our unnamed narrator flees to Berlin, embarking on her own cycles of manipulation in the deceptive spaces of her daily life, from dating apps to expat meetups, open-plan offices to bureaucratic waiting rooms. She begins to think she can't trust anyone--shouldn't the feeling be mutual? Narrated with seductive confidence and subversive wit, Fake Accounts challenges the way current conversations about the self and community, delusions and gaslighting, and fiction and reality play out in the internet age.
Download or read book Thomas Paine s Rights of Man written by Christopher Hitchens and published by Grove Press. This book was released on 2008-09 with total page 180 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Thomas Paine's "Rights of Man" has been celebrated, criticized, maligned, suppressed, and co-opted, but Hitchens marvels at its forethought and revels in its contentiousness. In this book, he demonstrates how Paine's book forms the philosophical cornerstone of the U.S.
Download or read book Letters to a Young Scientist written by Edward O. Wilson and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2013-04-15 with total page 153 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Pulitzer Prize–winning biologist Edward O. Wilson imparts the wisdom of his storied career to the next generation. Edward O. Wilson has distilled sixty years of teaching into a book for students, young and old. Reflecting on his coming-of-age in the South as a Boy Scout and a lover of ants and butterflies, Wilson threads these twenty-one letters, each richly illustrated, with autobiographical anecdotes that illuminate his career—both his successes and his failures—and his motivations for becoming a biologist. At a time in human history when our survival is more than ever linked to our understanding of science, Wilson insists that success in the sciences does not depend on mathematical skill, but rather a passion for finding a problem and solving it. From the collapse of stars to the exploration of rain forests and the oceans’ depths, Wilson instills a love of the innate creativity of science and a respect for the human being’s modest place in the planet’s ecosystem in his readers.
Download or read book Letters to a Young Calvinist written by James K. A. Smith and published by Brazos Press. This book was released on 2010-11 with total page 160 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At a time when definitions of Calvinism are hotly contested, this book provides a vision of the Reformed faith that is generous, winsome, and imaginative.
Download or read book No One Left to Lie to written by Christopher Hitchens and published by Verso. This book was released on 2000 with total page 164 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Suggests that President Clinton's largest legacy may be the weakening of the presidency and of the Democratic Party.
