Christopher Hitchens, one of the most incisive minds of our own age, meets Orwell on the page in this provocative encounter of wit, contention and moral truth.
Basic Books
September 2003
224 pages ISBN: 0465030505 Trade Size Add to Wish List
In this widely acclaimed biographical essay, Christopher
Hitchens assesses the life, the achievements, and the myth
of the great political writer and participant George Orwell.
In true emulative and 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 towards 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 fifty years since his death. Combining the
best of Hitchens's 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.
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