Christopher Hitchens life and biography

Christopher Eric Hitchens is an English-American author and journalist whose books, essays, and journalistic career span more than four decades.

Christopher Hitchens is an English-American intellectual whose stock in trade is writing provocative essays that challenge the the philosophical underpinnings of the state and the (Christian) church. He studied philosophy, politics and economics at Balliol College, Oxford, and graduated in 1970. He began his journalism career in London soon after, with the New Statesman, the Evening Standard and the Daily Express. Hitchens has lived in the United States since 1981, and has had long relationships with The Nation, Vanity Fair, The Atlantic and Slate, bolstering his credibilty as a literary leftist. He made his career with erudite essays on foreign policy, as well as controversial swipes at high-profile personalities such as Henry Kissinger, Mother Teresa and Bill Clinton. After two decades of international reporting and book reviews for solidly left-wing publications, Hitchens irritated many on the left in 2002 and 2003, when he supported U.S. President George W. Bush's overthrow of Iraq's Saddam Hussein. In the post-9/11 world, Hitchens came out swinging against what he considered the Left's weak response to the event, and he uncharacteristically allied himself with the "neoconservatives" who vilified Islamic fundamentalists. His opinions only furthered his lifelong run as a contrarian and gadfly, but even his critics agree that his biting attacks are delivered eloquently. In recent years he's ramped up an international reputation as a high-profile atheist and religion hater, thanks in large part to his 2007 book, God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything. His other books include The Trial of Henry Kissinger (2001) and Why Orwell Matters (2002).

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