![]() When Ben Burgis announced that he would be publishing a book entitled Christopher Hitchens: What He Got Right, How He Went Wrong, and Why He Still Matters, I anticipated a more thoughtful exploration of Hitchens’s political history and relevance than what is currently on offer. ![]() ![]() He seemed to be a living anachronism: a dishevelled and bloodshot pugilistic Boomer from the days of smoke-filled TV studios and large print circulations, and a caricature of the hard-drinking, chain-smoking, hyper-erudite Fleet Street transplant. Thompson mystique began to color the public perception of Hitchens, especially in the final decade of his life when he was even sketched by Ralph Steadman. This was the case even before his death-a sort of Hunter S. ![]() They were reflections on the life of a charismatic bon viveur as much as the career of a bracing polemicist. Many of these articles-positive, negative, or ambivalent-had as much to do with the personality of their subject as they did with his politics or principles. A review of Christopher Hitchens: What He Got Right, How He Went Wrong, and Why He Still Matters by Ben Burgis, Zero Books, 160 pages (January 2021)ĭecember 15th marked the 10th anniversary of Christopher Hitchens’s death, an occasion that produced a renewed flurry of think-pieces pontificating about his legacy. ![]()
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