Coordinates	23°33′″N46°38′″N
name	Shashi Tharoor
birth date	March 09, 1956
birth place	London, United Kingdom
nationality	Indian
religion	Hinduism
alma mater	St. Stephen's College, Delhi (B.A.)Tufts University (M.A., Ph.D. and Master of Arts in Law and Diplomacy)
residence	New Delhi/Trivandrum
occupation	Writer, Diplomat, Politician
spouse	Tilottama Mukherji (div.)Christa (div.)Sunanda Pushkar
children	Ishaan, Kanishk
office	Member of Parliament - Lok Sabha
constituency	Thiruvananthapuram
term start	2009
party	Indian National Congress
parliament	Indian
predecessor	Pannyan Raveendran
office2	Minister of State for External Affairs
Primeminister2	Manmohan Singh
Term start2	28 May 2009
Term end2	18 April 2010
Predecessor2	Anand Sharma
Successor2	E. Ahamed
website	tharoor.in }}

Shashi Tharoor () (born 9 March 1956) is an Indian politician and a Member of Parliament (MP) from the Thiruvananthapuram constituency in Kerala. He previously served as the United Nations Under-Secretary General for Communications and Public Information and as the Minister of State for the Ministry of External Affairs.

He is also a prolific author, columnist, journalist and a human rights advocate.

He is the managing trustee of the ''Chandran Tharoor Foundation'' which he founded with his family and friends in the name of his late father, Chandran Tharoor.

Childhood and education

Shashi Tharoor was born in London to Lily and Chandran Tharoor, both Malayalis, hailing from the state of Kerala. Tharoor studied at Montfort School in Yercaud and Campion School in Mumbai. He attended high school at St. Xavier’s Collegiate School in Kolkata and obtained his Bachelor of Arts degree in history from St. Stephen’s College, Delhi.

He went on to win a scholarship to study at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and earned three degrees in three years - a Ph.D. and two master's degrees At the age of 22, Tharoor is the youngest person in the history of the Fletcher School to be awarded a doctorate. His doctoral thesis, "Reasons of State", was a required reading in courses on Indian foreign-policy making. In 2000, Tharoor was awarded a honorary Doctor of Letters degree by the University of Puget Sound and in 2008 he received a honorary doctorate degree by the University of Bucharest.

Diplomatic career

Beginning

Shashi Tharoor's career in the United Nations began in 1978 as a staff member of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Geneva. From 1981 to 1984 he headed the UNHCR office in Singapore during the ''boat people'' crisis. In 1989 he was appointed as the Special Assistant to the Under-Secretary-General for Special Political Affairs, the unit that later became the Peacekeeping Operations in New York. Until 1996, he led the team responsible for peacekeeping operations in the former Yugoslavia.

Under-Secretary-General at the UN

In 1996 Tharoor was appointed Director of Communications and Special Projects and as Executive Assistant to the Secretary-General Kofi Annan. In January 2001, he was appointed as the Under-Secretary-General for Communications and Public Information, and as the head of Department of Public Information (UNDPI). In this capacity, he was responsible for the communication strategy, enhancing the image and effectiveness of the UN. In 2003, the Secretary-General appointed him to the additional responsibility of United Nations Coordinator for Multilingualism. During his tenure at the UNDPI, Tharoor reformed his department and undertook a number of initiatives, ranging from organizing and conducting the first-ever UN seminar on anti-Semitism, the first-ever UN seminar on Islamophobia and launching an annual list of "Ten Under-Reported Stories the World Ought to Know About".

On 9 February 2007, Tharoor resigned from the post of UN Under-Secretary-General on and left the UN effective 1 April 2007.

Campaign for Secretary-General: 2007

In 2006, Tharoor was nominated by the Government of India for the post of UN Secretary General. Tharoor came a close second (behind Ban Ki-moon) in each of the four straw polls conducted by the UN Security Council and won the online poll conducted by the BBC News website. After the fourth poll, Ban emerged as the only candidate with the support of all five permanent members, each of whom has the power to veto candidates. Of the seven contenders for the post, Tharoor remained the only other to enjoy a majority in the Security Council. One Permanent Member (later revealed to be the US under the Bush Administration) opposed and China abstained from voting. After the vote, Tharoor withdrew his candidacy expressing his confidence for Ban to win.

Had he been elected, the then 50 year old Shashi Tharoor would have been the second-youngest Secretary-General to be appointed to the post. The first being Dag Hammarskjöld who was appointed at the age of 46 years.

Post-UN career

In February 2007, amidst rampant speculation about his post-UN future, it was presciently reported in the Indian press that Tharoor might be inducted into council of ministers of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh as Minister of State for External Affairs. In the same month, it was reported in an American gossip blog that Tharoor was a finalist for the position of dean of the USC Annenberg School for Communication in Los Angeles, though he withdrew his name from consideration at the final stage. Instead, Dr. Tharoor—in addition to a variety of other activities in his private life— became chairman of Dubai-based Afras Ventures, which established the Afras Academy for Business Communication (AABC) in Trivandrum, Kerala, India. He also spoke widely around the globe about India and Kerala, the state where he spent increasing amounts of time before moving for good in October 2008.

Political Career in India

In March 2009, Shashi Tharoor contested the Indian General Elections in 2009 as Congress Party candidate from Thiruvananthapuram (Lok Sabha constituency) in Kerala. His opponents included P. Ramachandran Nair of the Communist Party of India (CPI), Neelalohitadasan Nadar of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), M.P. Gangadharan of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and P. K. Krishna Das of Bharathiya Janata Party (BJP). Despite being criticized as an "elite outsider" he went on to win defeating his nearest CPI rival P. Ramachandran Nair by a margin of approximately 100,000 votes. Subsequently Shashi Tharoor was selected as Minister of State in the Council of Ministers of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. On 28 May 2009 he was sworn in as the Indian Minister of State for External Affairs.

Tharoor's use of his political website (www.tharoor.in) and new media technologies like Twitter quickly earned him a celebrity status. He went on to become the first Indian celebrity to get 100,000 followers on Twitter. However, some of his tweets (or twitter posts) proved controversial and were quoted by the press and opposition parties to criticize his work. On 18 April 2010 Tharoor resigned from his post as Minister of State for External Affairs on instructions from Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, following allegations that he had misused his office to get shares in the IPL cricket franchise of Cochin. Tharoor stoutly denied the charges and in his resignation speech called for a full inquiry. His position seems vindicated by the fact that there have been no adverse findings and no legal proceedings have been instituted against him.

On 2 May 2010, he was nominated to be a member of the Parliamentary Standing Committee for External Affairs by Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar.

Literary career

Tharoor has written numerous books in English. Most of his literary creations are centred on Indian themes and they are markedly “Indo-nostalgic.” Perhaps his most famous work is ''The Great Indian Novel'', published in 1989, in which he uses the narrative and theme of the famous Indian epic Mahabharata to weave a satirical story of Indian life in a non-linear mode with the characters drawn from the Indian Independence Movement. His novel ''Show Business'' (1992) was made into the film 'Bollywood' (1994). The late Ismail Merchant had announced his wish to make a film of Tharoor’s novel ''Riot'' shortly before Merchant’s death in 2005. Tharoor has been a highly-regarded columnist in each of India's three best-known English-language newspapers, most recently for ''The Hindu'' newspaper (2001–2008) and in a weekly column, “Shashi on Sunday,” in the ''Times of India'' (January 2007 – December 2008). Following his resignation as Minister of State for External Affairs, he began a fortnightly column on foreign policy issues in the "Deccan Chronicle". Previously he was a columnist for the ''Gentleman'' magazine and the ''Indian Express'' newspaper, as well as a frequent contributor to ''Newsweek International'' and the ''International Herald Tribune''. His Op-Eds and book reviews have appeared in the ''Washington Post'', the ''New York Times'' and the ''Los Angeles Times'', amongst other papers. His monthly column, "India Reawakening", distributed by Project Syndicate, appears in some 80 newspapers around the world.

Tharoor began writing at the age of six and his first published story appeared in the “Bharat Jyoti”, the Sunday edition of the "Free press Journal", in Mumbai at age 10. His World War II adventure novel ''Operation Bellows'', inspired by the Biggles books, was serialized in the Junior Statesman starting a week before his 11th birthday. Each of his books has been a best-seller in India. ''The Great Indian Novel'' is currently in its 28th edition in India and his newest volume. ''The Elephant, the Tiger and the Cellphone'' has undergone seven hardback re-printings there.

Tharoor has lectured widely on India, and is often quoted for his observations, including, "India is not, as people keep calling it, an underdeveloped country, but rather, in the context of its history and cultural heritage, a highly developed one in an advanced state of decay." He has also coined a memorable comparison of India's "thali" to the American "melting pot": "If America is a melting pot, then to me India is a thali - a selection of sumptuous dishes in different bowls. Each tastes different, and does not necessarily mix with the next, but they belong together on the same plate, and they complement each other in making the meal a satisfying repast.". (Other quotes in Wikiquote.)

Personal life

A theatre buff and successful actor in his school days, he played Antony to Mira Nair’s Cleopatra in a 1974 production of ''Antony and Cleopatra''. At St. Stephen’s in the early 1970s he founded the Quiz Club, which is still in existence; he also revived the Wodehouse Society, which is no longer in existence. Upon election as President of the College Union he relinquished the Secretaryship of the History Society as well as the editorship of the campus humour magazine “Kooler Talk.” He was invited by St. Stephen’s College to deliver the college’s 125th Anniversary Jubilee Lecture in 2005.

He has been an elected Fellow of the New York Institute for the Humanities and a member of the Advisory Board of the Indo-American Arts Council and also served on the Board of Directors of Breakthrough, an international human rights organization, the Board of Overseers of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, the Board of Trustees of the Aspen Institute, and as an International Adviser to the International Committee of the Red Cross. He also supported various educational causes, including as Patron of the Modern High School in Dubai.

At the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy in 1976, he founded and was the first chair of the editorial board of the Fletcher Forum of International Affairs, a journal examining issues in international relations.

Tharoor has twin sons Ishaan and Kanishk from his first marriage to Tilottama Mukherji, an academic who he knew from school days in Calcutta. Both sons attended Yale University. Ishaan writes for Time magazine's international edition in Hong Kong, while Kanishk is an editor at Open Democracy in London. Ishaan has written a wide range of stories, including cover stories on Nepal and the Philippines. Kanishk is a journalist and also a writer of fiction, for which he was nominated for a US National Magazine Award in 2009.

Later he was married to Christa, a Canadian working at the United Nations. After their divorce, Tharoor went on to his third marriage. Shashi Tharoor married Sunanda Pushkar in a quiet ceremony at his ancestral home in Elavanchery village in Kerala's Palakkad district on 22 August 2010.

Controversies

In September 2009, Tharoor and S M Krishna were accused of staying in luxurious 5-star hotels. Tharoor defended himself, saying that it was because of the delay in his official residence being ready and he only spent from his own pocket for the accommodation. Later on Pranab Mukherjee's request Tharoor and Krishna moved out of the hotels.

A controversy erupted on a joke in which Tharoor, responding to the question as to whether he would travel in "Cattle Class", replied that he would do so. This remark on Twitter (@ShashiTharoor), the media claimed that he equated the travelling public to cattle and also taunted his party, the Indian National Congress over their austerity drive. It was also reported that Congress may take action against him. However this was subsequently resolved when the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh pointed out that it was a joke. Tharoor met his party leadership and offered them an explanation.

Another controversy erupted on Gandhi Jayanti when he said people should be working rather than staying at home taking a holiday, thereby paying real homage to Mahatma Gandhi.

Tharoor was in the news again for publicly criticizing the new visa guidelines adopted by the Indian Government in the wake of the gaps exposed by the arrest of 26/11 terror suspects, David Headley and Tahawwur Rana. For this,he was criticized for breaking ranks with the official position of the Government. He later met External Affairs Minister, SM Krishna and explained his position on the issue. The rules were subsequently partly modified.

In January 2010, Tharoor was reported to have criticized Gandhi and Nehru for their vision on Indian foreign policy by the Indian media. This angered his party, the Indian National Congress. In the wake of this controversy, he held a press conference describing the report as "inaccurate" and "tendentious". He said, "irresponsible reporting may briefly gratify a few sensation-seekers in the media, but they do no credit to the need for informed discussion of foreign policy issues in our democracy. India deserves better. So, frankly, do I."

In February 2010 when accompanying the Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on a three-day visit to Saudi Arabia, he said "We feel that Saudi Arabia has a long and close relationship with Pakistan, that makes Saudi Arabia even more a valuable interlocutor for us. When we tell them about our experience, Saudi Arabia listens as somebody who is not in any way an enemy of Pakistan, but a friend of Pakistan and, therefore, will listen with sympathy and concern to a matter of this nature". He was asked whether India expected Saudi Arabia, given their close ties with Islamabad, to help address the terror threat from Pakistan. The remark about Saudi Arabia being a "valuable interlocutor" raised a strong reaction within the Indian political circle. The Pakistani press even went on to report that he had proposed that Saudi Arabia play a mediator's role in improving India's relationship with Pakistan. In response, Tharoor tweeted saying, "An interlocutor is someone you speak to. If I speak to you, you are my interlocutor. I mentioned the Saudis as our interlocutors, i.e. the people we are here to speak to".

In February 2010, a website called "Keralawatch" published an investigative report which alleged that Tharoor used incomplete records to enrol his name in the voter's list in Thiruvananthapuram constituency. Tharoor has not found it necessary to respond to this issue.

Lalit Modi published the shareholders details of Kochi-IPL team's franchise owners, Rendezvous Sports World (RSW) group in his Twitter account and also mentioned that he was asked by an influential Union Minister not to get into details of Sunanda Pushkar, who was given a sweat equity of approximately 4.5 per cent of total equity (estimated by the media to be worth Rs 70 crore) in Kochi IPL team. In an official statement, Tharoor denied having made any financial gains from the sale or having pressured Modi in any way. He further accused Modi of trying to delay and discredit the new owners so that the franchise can be re-awarded elsewhere. RSW protested Modi's breach of confidentiality agreement. Sunanda Pushkar also issued a statement denying being a proxy for Tharoor. Later amidst demands for his resignation from the Union Cabinet by the opposition parties, Sunanda Pushkar gave up the sweat equity offered to her by RSW. But IT department stated that she will have to pay income tax on her sweat equity in Rendezvous Sports World even after having given it up. Allegations that this was pay back for denying a request to not issue a visa to a South African model close to Lalit Modi have surfaced, and so have death threats to Shashi Tharoor by the Mumbai underworld. Under severe push from Congress chief Sonia Gandhi and Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee combine, the Congress core committee decided to ask for Tharoor's resignation..18 April 2010 Shashi Tharoor resigned from the post of Minister of State in MEA after calling for a full inquiry into the matter. An internet support site was set up by his admirers to collect pledges for the support of Shashi Tharoor on the same day.

Honors, Awards and International Recognition

1976, Aged 20, Wins the ''Rajika Kripalani Young Journalist Award'' for the Best Indian Journalist under 30.

1990 – Wins the Federation of Indian Publishers' Hindustan Times Literary Award for the Best Book of the Year for ''The Great Indian Novel''.

1991 – His book ''The Great Indian Novel'' wins the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for the Best Book of the Year in the Eurasian Region.

1998 – Awarded the ''Excelsior Award'' for excellence in literature by the Association of Indians in America (AIA) and the Network of Indian Professionals (NetIP).

May 2000 – Conferred the honorary degree of ''Doctor of Letters in International Affairs'' by the University of Puget Sound

1998 – Named ''Global Leader of Tomorrow'' by the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland

2009–Presented with the ''Hakim Khan Sur'' Award for National Integration by the Maharana of Udaipur.

2004 – Awarded the prestigious Pravasi Bharatiya Samman, India’s highest honour for non-resident Indians. But did not accept it at the time owing to UN rules prohibiting acceptance of governmental honours.

2007 – Went on to accept the award after having resigned from the position of Under Secretary General at the UN.

2008 – Conferred a Doctorate ''Honoris Causa'' by the University of Bucharest, Romania.

2009 – Awarded the Zakir Hussain Memorial "Pride of India" Award.

2009 – Awarded GQ's Inspiration of the Year Award at its Man of the Year Awards.

2010 – Awarded the ''Sarva Deshiya Prathibha'' award by the Pazhassiraja Charitable Trust, Kozhikode.

March 2010 – Awarded "New Age Politician of the Year" Award by NDTV at its Indian of the Year awards.

2010 – Awarded the Fifth IILM ''Distinguished Global Thinker Award'' in New Delhi 2010 – Awarded ''Digital person of the year'' at the first ever Indian Digital Media Awards (IDMA) for popularising the digital medium in India

Bibliography

Fiction

''Riot'' (2001)

''Show Business'' (1992)

''The Five Dollar Smile and Other Stories'' (1990)

''The Great Indian Novel'' (1989)

Non-fiction

''Shadows Across the Playing Field: Sixty Years of India-Pakistan Cricket'' [with Shaharyar Khan] (2009)

''The Elephant, the Tiger and the Cell Phone: Reflections on India in the 21st Century'' (2007)

''Bookless in Baghdad'' (2005)

''Nehru: The Invention of India'' (2003)

''India: From Midnight to the Millennium'' (1997)

''Reasons of State'' (1982) ISBN 978-0-7069-1275-3

Illustrated books

''Kerala: God’s own country'' (2002) [with artist M.F. Husain]

''L'Inde'' (French) and ''India'' (English) (2008) [with photographer Ferrante Ferranti]

References

External links

Shashi Tharoor

Shashi Tharoor on Twitter

Pledge Your Support for Shashi Tharoor

The Chandran Tharoor Foundation

TED Talk – ''Shashi Tharoor: Why nations should pursue "soft" power''

United Nations biography

USC Center on Public Diplomacy biography

BBC Q&A; with Tharoor, 22 June 2000

"Shashi Tharoor for UN Secretary-General" website

"Awakening India:" Shashi Tharoor's monthly op/ed commentary series for Project Syndicate

Audio: Sashi Tharoor in conversation on the BBC World Service discussion show ''The Forum''

Shashi Tharoor's Videos

Category:1956 births Category:Living people Category:Malayali politicians Category:Malayali people Category:Indian diplomats Category:Indian novelists Category:Indian Hindus Category:United Nations officials Category:British people of South Asian descent Category:Tufts University alumni Category:Indian politicians Category:15th Lok Sabha members Category:English-language writers from India Category:University of Delhi alumni

de:Shashi Tharoor fr:Shashi Tharoor hi:शशि थरूर id:Shashi Tharoor kn:ಶಶಿ ತರೂರ್ ml:ശശി തരൂർ mr:शशी तरूर ja:シャシ・タルール ta:சசி தரூர்

Hari Mohan Nath Kunzru () (born 1969) is a British Indian novelist and journalist, author of the novels ''The Impressionist'', ''Transmission'', ''My Revolutions'' and ''Gods Without Men''. His work has been translated into twenty languages.

Early life

Of mixed English and Kashmiri Pandit ancestry, Kunzru was born in London and grew up in Essex. He was educated at Bancroft's School, Essex. He studied English at Wadham College, Oxford, then gained an MA in Philosophy and Literature from University of Warwick.

Career

From 1995 to 1997 he worked on ''Wired UK''. He has worked as a travel journalist since 1998, writing for such newspapers as ''The Guardian'' and ''The Daily Telegraph'', was travel correspondent for ''Time Out'' magazine, and worked as a TV presenter interviewing artists for the Sky TV electronic arts programme ''The Lounge''. From 1999–2004 he was also music editor of ''Wallpaper*'' magazine and since 1995 he has been a contributing editor to ''Mute'', the culture and technology magazine. His first novel, ''The Impressionist'' (2003), had a £1 million-plus advance and was well received critically with excellent sales. His second novel, ''Transmission'', was published in the summer of 2004. In 2005 he published the short story collection ''Noise''. His third novel, ''My Revolutions'', was published in August 2007. His fourth novel, ''Gods Without Men'', was released in August 2011. Set in the American south-west, it's a fractured story about multiple characters across time, it has been compared to David Mitchell's ''Cloud Atlas''.

Although he was also awarded The John Llewellyn Rhys prize for writers under 35, the second oldest literary prize in the UK, he turned it down on the grounds that it was backed by the ''Mail on Sunday'' whose "hostility towards black and Asian people" he felt was unacceptable. In a statement read out on his behalf, he stated, "As the child of an immigrant, I am only too aware of the poisonous effect of the Mail's editorial line... The atmosphere of prejudice it fosters translates into violence, and I have no wish to profit from it." He further went on to recommend that the award money be donated to the charity Refugee Council (UK).

He is Deputy President of English PEN.

In 2009, he donated the short story "''Kaltes klares Wasser''" to Oxfam's Ox-Tales project, four collections of UK stories written by 38 authors. Kunzru's story was published in the Water collection.

Honors

1999: ''The Observer'' Young Travel Writer of the Year

2002: Betty Trask Award, ''The Impressionist''

2003: Somerset Maugham Award, ''The Impressionist''

2003: ''Granta'' "Best of Young British Novelists" (one of twenty)

2005: New York Times Notable Book of the Year, ''Transmission''

2005: ''Lire'' "50 écrivains pour demain"

Bibliography

2003. ''The Impressionist''. London: Penguin.

2005. ''Noise''. London: Penguin.

2005. ''Transmission''. London: Penguin.

2007. ''My Revolutions''. London: Penguin.

2011. ''Gods Without Men'' London: Penguin.

References

External links

Hari Kunzru's website

Video of Hari Kunzru on Sky TV

Podcast of Hari Kunzru discussing "My Revolutions" at the Shanghai International Literary Festival

Podcast of Hari Kunzru reading from "My Revolutions" at writLOUD, London

Category:1969 births Category:Living people Category:Alumni of Wadham College, Oxford Category:Alumni of the University of Warwick Category:British Book Award winners Category:English Hindus Category:English journalists Category:English novelists Category:English people of Indian descent Category:Kashmiri people Category:Old Bancroftians

ca:Hari Kunzru de:Hari Kunzru fr:Hari Kunzru nl:Hari Kunzru no:Hari Kunzru pl:Hari Kunzru sv:Hari Kunzru

right|thumb|Mushahid Hussain Sayed filing his nomination papers for the Presidency of PakistanMushahid Hussain Sayed () is a Pakistani politician who is the current Secretary General of the center-right Pakistan Muslim League (Q).

Mushahid Hussain has a Master’s degree from the School of Foreign Service in Georgetown University in Washington DC. In Pakistan, he studied at the Forman Christian College University in Lahore, from where he received a BA.

Mushahid Hussain Sayed has served in the cabinet as federal minister of information from 1997 to 1999 in the Nawaz Sharif government. He was elected to the Senate of Pakistan in 2003 and is Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He was also selected the Secretary General of the Pakistan Muslim League (Q), Pakistan's predominant political party. Mushahid at age 29 was the youngest editor of a major newspaper, The Muslim (now closed), published from Islamabad, Pakistan. He was the editor from 1982 to 1987. He has been a cabinet minister, journalist, university teacher and political analyst.

He studied at the FC College University in Lahore, from where he received a Bachelor of Arts degree. He has a Master’s degree from the School of Foreign Service in Georgetown University. While studying in the US, he was president of the Pakistan Students Association. He represented Georgetown University at the Student Conference on US Affairs at the US Military Academy at West Point, the Naval Academy Foreign Affairs Conference at Annapolis and the US State Department’s ‘Crossroads’ programme for foreign students. He was also part of the international student group received by President Gerald Ford at the White House. He was awarded a Congressional Internship, rare for a foreign student, to work in the US Congress in the summer of 1974.

After completion of studies in the United States, he returned to Pakistan and became a member of directing staff at the country’s prestigious training institution for civil servants, the Pakistan Administrative Staff College. He then joined Pakistan’s oldest seat of learning, the Punjab University, as lecturer on international relations in the Political Science Department. He was among the four dissident teachers removed from the university in October 1979 for their campus activism during martial law.

In 1982, at age 29, he became the youngest editor of national English daily ‘The Muslim’ (now defunct) published from Islamabad, which was respected for its independent positions.

As information minister from 1997 to 1999, he was the country’s principal spokesman and appeared frequently on international television and radio channels to present Pakistan’s position on issues ranging from nuclear weapons to Islam and foreign policy.

He was also leader of Pakistan’s delegation to the UN Human Rights Commission at Geneva in 1993. After October 12, 1999, he was held without any charges as a political prisoner for 440 days, including a period in solitary imprisonment. The world’s leading human rights organisation, Amnesty International, declared him a ‘Prisoner of Conscience’ making him the first Pakistani to be so honoured for the year 2000.

Pursuant to an invitation, he wrote about his unique experiences in a special op-ed piece in ‘The New York Times’ titled ‘In the Cage, in Search of Grace’ on February 12, 2001. The Washington Post profiled him in detention on September 15, 2000, ‘Pakistan Keeps Gag on Former Spokesman'.

As a specialist on international political and strategic issues, he has lectured widely and his articles have been published in various national and international publications including ‘The New York Times’, ‘The Washington Post’, ‘International Herald Tribune’, ‘Jane’s Defence Weekly’ and ‘Middle East International’.

He was elected co-chairman of the NAM (Non-Aligned Movement) Media Conference of 100 countries, held in New Delhi in December 1983 and he is the first Pakistani journalist to have a syndicated column in the Indian media, writing regularly in the ‘Time of India’ and the ‘Hindustan Times’.

Mushahid Hussain is the author of three books. He is also chairman of the board of governors of Islamabad Policy Research Institute, a leading think-tank. He is Pakistan’s Representative to the 15-member Commission of Eminent Persons formed to reform and restructure the Organisation of Islamic Conference.

He is also the vice president of the Centrist Democrat International’s Asia-Pacific chapter. On January 27, 2006, he was awarded Congressional Medal of Achievement by the House of Representatives of the Republic of the Philippines.

He served as Senator and Chairman of the Foreign Relations, Kashmir Affairs and Northern Areas Committee of the Senate. He has also been a member of the parliamentary committee on Kashmir, joint parliamentary committee on Balochistan, functional committee on government assurances, functional committee on human rights and finance committee.

He was a member of Pakistan’s five-member delegation led by Prime Minister Muhammad Nawaz Sharif, which was received by President Bill Clinton for parleys at the White House in December 1998. He was also chairman of the Prime Minister’s Task Force on Central Asia in 1992-93, which planned policy initiatives towards that region after the break-up of the Soviet Union.

During the state visits of South African President Nelson Mandela, Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and Palestinian President Yasser Arafat to Pakistan, he was attached to them as minister-in-waiting.

He has been a guest lecturer at the State Department’s Foreign Service Institute, Harvard University, MIT, the Middle East Institute, the Stimson Centre, Oxford University and Georgetown University’s Centre for Christian-Muslim Understanding.

As a journalist, he has a broad range of professional experiences including covering summits, interviewing leaders and reporting on conflicts like Palestine, the guerrilla war in Western Sahara and the Iran-Iraq war. During the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, he was one of the first journalists from the area to personally visit Kabul and interview leaders there.

Mushahid Hussain Sayed led Pakistan's delegation to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights at Geneva. Amnesty International in 1999 declared Mushahid as a Prisoner of conscience. Released in December 2000, Mushahid had been held in detention for 440 days.

Mushahid Hussain was nominated by Pakistan Muslim League (Q) as their candidate for President of Pakistan.

He lost the Pakistani presidential election, 2008 to Asif Ali Zardari, who was elected President of Pakistan.

External links

Political Biography of Mushahid Hussain Syed

Leadership Profile

References

Category:Year of birth missing (living people) Category:Living people Category:Punjabi people Category:Pakistani politicians Category:Pakistani Sunni Muslims Category:Members of the Senate of Pakistan Category:Pakistan Muslim League (Q) politicians Category:Forman Christian College alumni Category:Georgetown University alumni Category:University of the Punjab faculty Category:Pakistani dissidents Category:Pakistani presidential candidates Category:Pakistani political journalists

pl:Mushahid Hussain Syed ur:مشاہد حسین

Coordinates	23°33′″N46°38′″N
name	Subramanian Swamy
Office1	President, Janata Party
Term start1	1989
Office2	Minister of Commerce and Industry
Primeminister2	Chandra Shekhar Singh
Term start2	1990
Term end2	1991
Office3	Minister of Law and Justice
Primeminister3	Chandra Shekhar Singh
Term start3	1990
Term end3	1991
Office4	Member of the Rajya Sabha
Term start4	1988
Term end4	1994
Term start5	1974
Term end5	1976
Office6	Member of the Lok Sabha
Term start6	1980
Term end6	1984
Term start7	1977
Term end7	1979
Birth date
Birth place	Mylapore, Chennai, British India
Party	Janata Party
religion	Hindu
alma mater	University of DelhiIndian Statistical InstituteHarvard University
profession	EconomistProfessorAuthorPolitician
spouse	Dr. Roxna Swamy }}

Subramanian Swamy (born 15 September 1939 in Chennai, sometimes spelt Subramaniam Swamy) is presently the President of Janata Party. He is a politician.

Early life and education

Subramanian Swamy was born in Mylapore, Chennai, India, into a Hindu Brahmin family. His father originally is from Madurai, Tamil Nadu, and his mother is from Tamil speaking family from Trichur, Kerala.

He attended Hindu College, University of Delhi, from where he earned his Bachelor Honours degree in Mathematics. He studied for his Masters degree in Statistics at the Indian Statistical Institute. He then went to study at Harvard University on a full Rockefeller scholarship. He was awarded a Ph.D. in Economics by Harvard University (Class of 1965).

For some time, while completing his dissertation in 1963, he worked at the United Nations Secretariat in New York as an Assistant Economics Affairs Officer. He subsequently worked as a resident tutor at Lowell House at Harvard.

Academic career

In 1964, Swamy joined the faculty of economics at Harvard and since then has taught in the Department of Economics. He began as an assistant professor, and in 1969 became an associate professor. He regularly teaches economics courses in summer session at Harvard.

From 1969 to 1991, he was a Professor of Economics at the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi. He was removed from the position by its board of Governors in the early 1970s but was legally reinstated in the late 1980s by the Supreme Court of India. He continued in the position until 1991 when he resigned to become a cabinet minister. He served on the Board of Governors of the IIT, Delhi (1977–80), and on the Council of IITs (1980–82).

He is the chairman of School of Communication & Management Studies in Kerala, a business institute in India.

Comparative study

He is accounted by some to be an authority on the comparative study of India and China and is also well-versed in the Mandarin Chinese language.

Political career

Role played during Indian Emergency

He first came into the spotlight for protesting against the emergency imposed in 1975. He went underground for a period of 6 months to avoid being arrested by police. Under the instruction of Jayaprakash Narayan, Swami escaped to US so that he could mobilise overseas Indians and world media against the emergency.

Elections contested

He was one of the founding members of the Janata Party and has been its president since 1990. He was elected Member of Parliament 5 times between 1974 and 1999. He has twice represented the city of Mumbai North East during 1977 and 1980, Uttar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu in the Parliament.

He was also a member of the Planning Commission between 1990 and 1991. Between 1994 and 1996, he held the position of "Chairman of the Commission on Labour Standards and International Trade" (equivalent to the rank of a cabinet minister) under the P. V. Narasimha Rao government. Dr. Swamy has been subject to several defamation cases. He is known to argue these cases himself without the agency of lawyers. In October 2004, he along with other members of the erstwhile Janata Party established the Rashtriya Swabhiman Manch to oppose the policies of the ruling UPA.

Minister of Commerce and Law of India

Economic Reforms in India

During the period 1990 to 1991 when Swamy was Cabinet Minister of Commerce and Law of India he created the blueprint for economic reforms in India under Prime Minister Chandra Shekhar Singh which was later carried out in 1991 by Manmohan Singh, then Finance Minister under leadership of Prime Minister Narasimha Rao. The current Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh recently stated that Dr. Swamy was the first to envisage and articulate the need for reforms in India.

Political views

International relations

China and India

He is known for his efforts in normalizing relations between China and India. In 1981, he persuaded Deng Xiaoping to open the Kailash Mansarovar in Tibet to the Hindu pilgrims from India. He became the first Indian on the reopening to visit Kailash and Mansarovar in 1981. In 1990-1991, he was a minister in the Chandra Shekhar cabinet and was in charge of the Ministry of Commerce and Ministry of Law and Justice.

Israel

In his speeches and articles, Dr Swamy has expressed his admiration for Israel, and has credited its retaliatory capacity for its ability to survive in a hostile Arab environment. He made pioneering efforts at establishing diplomatic relations with Israel.

2G spectrum scam

In November 2008, Subramanian Swamy wrote the first of five letters to PM Manmohan Singh seeking permission to prosecute A. Raja in regards to the 2G spectrum scam. However, Singh took no action, leading Swamy to file a case on his own in the Supreme Court of India regarding the matter, which then asked the Central Bureau of Investigation to produce a detailed report on the matter. He further called on the Indian government to re-auction the 2G spectrum without the involvement of Communications Minister Kapil Sibal.

Swamy has raised allegations that that Sonia Gandhi's two sisters Anushka and Nadia have received sixty percent of the kickbacks in the 2G spectrum scam, amounting to Rs.18,000 crores each. On 15 April 2011, he filed a 206-page long petition with PM Singh seeking permission to prosecute Gandhi. In the petition, he claimed to have strong evidence of corrupt acts committed by Gandhi as early as 1972; he also raised doubts regarding her acquisition of Indian citizenship. At a lecture on corruption given on 29 May 2011, he again repeated his allegation against Sonia Gandhi, saying she has Rs.1 lakh crore stashed abroad. Most of Swamy's letters to the prime minister regarding this matter are not supported by proof, but he is not defensive about his allegations, stating: "I am writing to the prime minister, I am not holding a press conference. The PM has agencies available to him, they can investigate. My job is to bring things to his notice." Also, "They say I have no proof. Rubbish! As if on other things, they always have proof."

Reaction to 2011 Mumbai bombings

In response to the 2011 Mumbai bombings, he wrote an editorial in ''Daily News and Analysis'' (''DNA'') claiming that "Muslims of India are being programmed by a slow reactive process to become radical and thus slide into suicide against Hindus". He then set out a programme for dealing with this alleged threat, including repealing Article 370 of the Constitution of India (which granted special autonomous status to Jammu and Kashmir), removing the Gyanvapi Mosque at Kashi Vishwanath Temple and other mosques at Hindu temples, disenfranchising non-Hindus who refuse to acknowledge their Hindu ancestry, prohibiting conversion from Hinduism to other religions, and annexing part of Bangladesh in retaliation for Bangladeshi illegal immigration in India.

Negative reactions

His column provoked a variety of reactions. His house was attacked by people alleged to be Congress party workers . Minorities Council of Maharashtra Vice Chairman Abraham Mathai and National Commission for Minorities chairman Wajahat Habibullah accused him of violating Indian Penal Code Section 153A. New Delhi law student Shehzad Poonawala attempted to lodge an FIR against him at Defence Colony police station, but was disallowed by the officer on duty. ''DNA'' published two hostile response columns by Rakesh Sharma and Parsa Venkateshwar Rao Jr. calling him a "Hindu Taliban", "maverick", and "Zionist" in response to his views.

Reaction at Harvard

Some students at his alma mater Harvard University, where he also teaches economics in the summer school, accused him of stoking communalism and circulated a petition calling on the university to fire him and publicly repudiate his remarks. Adam Kissel, on behalf of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, wrote in a letter to Harvard that a disciplinary investigation against him would be inappropriate for an academic institution dedicated to intellectual freedom, represented a threat to free speech, and could lead to self-censorship by other faculty members.

In response to the petition, Donald H. Pfister, dean of Harvard Summer School, stated that the school would "give this matter our serious attention", but the school decided to stand by its instructor .

Tamil Nadu

He is well known for his critical views against the Government of Tamil Nadu and against the rationalist views of E.V.R. Ramaswamy. He is a constant fighter for the revival of Hindutva in Tamil Nadu.

He is staunch detractor of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.

He obtained Supreme Court Stay against the implementation of Sethu Samuthiram Shipping Channel project (SSSCP). He believes that this shallow land connecting between Tamil Nadu and Sri Lanka was built by Rama approximately 1,260,000 years ago. He strongly opposes the implementation of SSSCP citing that implementing this scheme may affect the sentiments of Hinduism. He wrote letters to Prime Minister of India in June 2009 asking him to stop the project.

Personal Life

Swamy is married to Dr. Roxna Swamy (a Parsi .), an advocate at the Supreme Court of India. He has two daughters, Gitanjali Swamy and Suhasini Haider, the latter a journalist at CNN-IBN. His brother-in-law is Jewish, his son-in-law Muslim, his sister-in-law Christian and his wife Parsi.

Books, Research Papers and Journals

Books:

Economic Growth in China and India, 1952-70 (Publisher: University of Chicago Press; ISBN: 9780226783154)

Indian economic planning;: An alternative approach (Publisher: Barnes & Noble; ISBN: 9780389042020)

Building a New India: An Agenda for National Renaissance (Publisher: South Asia Books; ISBN: 9788185674216)

India's Labour Standards and the WTO Framework (Publisher: Konark Publishers; ISBN: 9788122005851)

India's economic performance and reforms: A perspective for the new millennium (Publisher: Konark Publishers; ISBN: 9788122005943)

Assassination of Rajiv Gandhi: Unanswered Questions and Unasked Queries (Publisher: Konark Publishers; ISBN: 9788122005912)

India's China perspective (Publisher: Konark Publishers; ISBN: 9788122006063)

Financial Architecture and Economic Development in China and India (Publisher: Konark Publishers; ISBN: 9788122007183)

Trade and Industry in Japan: A Guide to Indian Entrepreneurs and Businessmen (Publisher: Prentice-Hall of India; ISBN: 9788120307858)

Sri Lanka in Crisis: India's Options (Publisher: Har Anand Publications; ISBN: 9788124112601)

Hindus Under Siege (Publisher: Har Anand Publications; ISBN: 9788124112076)

Rama Setu: Symbol of National Unity (Publisher: Har Anand Publications; ISBN: 9788124114186)

Terrorism in India: A Strategy of Deterrence for India's National Security (Publisher: Har Anand Publications; ISBN: 9788124113448)

Corruption and Corporate Governance in India: Satyam, Spectrum & Sundaram (Publisher: Har Anand Publications; ISBN: 9788124114865)

2G Spectrum Scam (Publisher: Har Anand Publications; ISBN: 9788124116388)

References

References

External links

Biography on Janta Party site

Kashmir Hindu Foundation interviews Subramaniam Swamy

Subramaniam Swamy's views on the influence of Hinduism

Subramaniam Swamy in Janata Party's website

An article by Dr. Subramanian Swamy on how to face defamation litigation

Basic Islam for Hindu Dhimmis - Subramanian Swamy

The Assassination of Rajiv Gandhi: unanswered questions and unasked queries

Category:1939 births Category:Living people Category:People from Chennai Category:Indian Hindus Category:Tamil Brahmins Category:Indian economists Category:Indian politicians Category:Tamil Nadu politicians Category:Maharashtra politicians Category:Members of Parliament from Maharashtra Category:6th Lok Sabha members Category:7th Lok Sabha members Category:University of Delhi alumni Category:Harvard University alumni Category:Indian Institute of Technology Delhi faculty Category:Harvard University faculty Category:English-language writers from India

hi:सुब्रमणियन स्वामी ta:சுப்பிரமணியம் சுவாமி

Coordinates	23°33′″N46°38′″N
name	Christopher Hitchens
birth name	Christopher Eric Hitchens
birth date	April 13, 1949
birth place	Portsmouth, England
death date	December 15, 2011
death place	Houston, Texas, U.S.
occupation	Writer, journalist, public speaker
alma mater	Balliol College, Oxford
nationality	English American
citizenship	British and American
religion	None
subject	Politics, religion, history, biography, literature
spouse
relatives	Peter Hitchens (brother)
influences	George Orwell, Leszek Kolakowski, Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson, George Eliot, Karl Marx, Leon Trotsky, Rosa Luxemburg, John Stuart Mill, Joseph Heller, Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Noam Chomsky, Gore Vidal, Edward Said, Salman Rushdie, Vladimir Nabokov, Richard Llewellyn, Aldous Huxley, PG Wodehouse, Evelyn Waugh, Richard Hofstadter, Paul Mark Scott, James Fenton, James Joyce, Albert Camus, Oscar Wilde, Conor Cruise O'Brien, Martin Amis, Kingsley Amis, Ian McEwan, Colm Tóibín, Bertrand Russell, Wilfred Owen, Israel Shahak, Isaiah Berlin, Émile Zola, W. H. Auden, Susan Sontag
influenced	Johann Hari, Martin Amis, Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins
signature	CH Signature 2.jpg|200px
website	}}

Christopher Eric Hitchens, nicknamed "Hitch", (13 April 1949 – 15 December 2011) was an English American author, essayist and journalist, whose books, essays, and journalistic career spanned more than four decades. He was a columnist and literary critic for ''The Atlantic'', ''Free Inquiry'', ''The Nation'', ''Salon'', ''Slate'', ''Vanity Fair'', ''World Affairs'', and became a media fellow at the Hoover Institution in September 2008. He was a staple of talk shows and lecture circuits and in 2005 was voted the world's fifth top public intellectual in a ''Prospect''/''Foreign Policy'' poll.

Hitchens was known for his admiration of George Orwell, Thomas Paine and Thomas Jefferson and for his excoriating critiques of Mother Teresa, Bill and Hillary Clinton, Henry Kissinger and Britain's royal family, among others. His confrontational style of debate made him both a lauded and controversial figure. As a political observer, polemicist and self-defined radical, he rose to prominence as a fixture of the left-wing publications in his native Britain and in the United States. His departure from the established political left began in 1989 after what he called the "tepid reaction" of the Western left following Ayatollah Khomeini's issue of a ''fatwā'' calling for the murder of Salman Rushdie. The September 11 attacks strengthened his internationalist embrace of an interventionist foreign policy, and his vociferous criticism of what he called "fascism with an Islamic face". His numerous editorials in support of the Iraq War caused some to label him a neoconservative, although Hitchens insisted he was not "a conservative of any kind".

Identified as a champion of the "New Atheism" movement, Hitchens described himself as an antitheist and a believer in the philosophical values of the Enlightenment. Hitchens said that a person "could be an atheist and wish that belief in god were correct", but that "an antitheist, a term I'm trying to get into circulation, is someone who is relieved that there's no evidence for such an assertion." According to Hitchens, the concept of a god or a supreme being is a totalitarian belief that destroys individual freedom, and that free expression and scientific discovery should replace religion as a means of teaching ethics and defining human civilization. He wrote at length on atheism and the nature of religion in his 2007 book ''God Is Not Great''.

Though Hitchens retained his British citizenship, he became a United States citizen on the steps of the Jefferson Memorial on 13 April 2007, his 58th birthday. Asteroid 57901 Hitchens is named after him. His memoir, ''Hitch-22'', was published in June 2010. Touring for the book was cut short later in the same month so he could begin treatment for newly diagnosed esophageal cancer. On 15 December 2011, Hitchens died from pneumonia, a complication of his cancer, in the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas.

Life and career

Early life and education

His mother, Yvonne Jean (née Hickman), and father, Eric Ernest Hitchens (1909–1987), met in Scotland while both were serving in the Royal Navy during World War II. Yvonne was at the time a "Wren" (a member of the Women's Royal Naval Service), and Eric a "purse-lipped and silent" commander, whose ship HMS ''Jamaica'' helped sink Nazi Germany's battleship ''Scharnhorst'' in the Battle of the North Cape. His father's naval career required the family to move a number of times from base to base throughout Britain and its dependencies, including in Malta, where Christopher's brother Peter was born in Sliema in 1951.

Hitchens's mother having argued that "if there is going to be an upper class in this country, then Christopher is going to be in it,", in the late fifties and early sixties he was educated at Mount House School in Tavistock in Devon, then at the independent Leys School in Cambridge, and then at Balliol College in Oxford, where he was tutored by Steven Lukes and read philosophy, politics, and economics. Hitchens was "bowled over" in his adolescence by Richard Llewellyn's ''How Green Was My Valley'', Arthur Koestler's ''Darkness at Noon,'' Fyodor Dostoyevsky's ''Crime and Punishment'', R. H. Tawney's critique on ''Religion and the Rise of Capitalism,'' and the works of George Orwell. In 1968, he took part in the TV quiz show ''University Challenge''.

Hitchens has written of his homosexual experiences when in boarding school in his memoir, ''Hitch-22''. These experiences continued in his college years, when he allegedly had relationships with two men who eventually became a part of the Thatcher government.

In the 1960s Hitchens joined the political left, drawn by his anger over the Vietnam War, nuclear weapons, racism, and "oligarchy", including that of "the unaccountable corporation". He would express affinity with the politically charged countercultural and protest movements of the 1960s and 1970s. However, he deplored the rife recreational drug use of the time, which he describes as hedonistic.

He joined the Labour Party in 1965, but along with the majority of the Labour students' organization was expelled in 1967, because of what Hitchens called "Prime Minister Harold Wilson's contemptible support for the war in Vietnam". Under the influence of Peter Sedgwick, who translated the writings of Russian revolutionary and Soviet dissident Victor Serge, Hitchens forged an ideological interest in Trotskyist and anti-Stalinist socialism. Shortly after he joined "a small but growing post-Trotskyist Luxemburgist sect".

Journalistic career (1970–1981)

Hitchens began working as a correspondent for the magazine ''International Socialism'', published by the International Socialists, the forerunners of today's British Socialist Workers Party. This group was broadly Trotskyist, but differed from more orthodox Trotskyist groups in its refusal to defend communist states as "workers' states". Their slogan was "Neither Washington nor Moscow but International Socialism".

Hitchens left Oxford with a third class degree. His first job was with the London ''Times Higher Education Supplement'', where he served as social science editor. Hitchens admitted that he hated the position, and was later fired; he recalled, "I sometimes think if I'd been any good at that job, I might still be doing it." In the 1970s, he went on to work for the ''New Statesman'', where he became friends with the authors Martin Amis and Ian McEwan, among others. At the ''New Statesman'' he acquired a reputation as a fierce left-winger, aggressively attacking targets such as Henry Kissinger, the Vietnam War, and the Roman Catholic Church.

In November 1973, Hitchens' mother committed suicide in Athens in a suicide pact with her lover, a former clergyman named Timothy Bryan. They overdosed on sleeping pills in adjoining hotel rooms, and Bryan slashed his wrists in the bathtub. Hitchens flew alone to Athens to recover his mother's body. Hitchens said he thought his mother was pressured into suicide by fear that her husband would learn of her infidelity, as their marriage had been strained and unhappy. Both her children were then independent adults. While in Greece, Hitchens reported on the constitutional crisis of the military junta. It became his first leading article for the ''New Statesman''.

American career (1981–2011)

After moving to the United States in 1981, Hitchens wrote for ''The Nation'', where he penned vociferous critiques of Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush and American foreign policy in South and Central America. He became a contributing editor of ''Vanity Fair'' in 1992, writing ten columns a year. He left ''The Nation'' in 2002 after profoundly disagreeing with other contributors over the Iraq War. There is speculation that Hitchens was the inspiration for Tom Wolfe's character Peter Fallow in the 1987 novel ''The Bonfire of the Vanities'', but others — including Hitchens (or he indicated as such while alive) — believe it to be ''Spy Magazine''s "Ironman Nightlife Decathlete" Anthony Haden-Guest. In 1987, his father died from cancer of the esophagus.

Hitchens spent part of his early career in journalism as a foreign correspondent in Cyprus. Through his work there he met his first wife Eleni Meleagrou, a Greek Cypriot, with whom he had two children, Alexander and Sophia. His son, Alexander Meleagrou-Hitchens, born in 1984, has worked as a researcher for London think tanks the Policy Exchange and the Centre for Social Cohesion. Hitchens continued writing essay-style correspondence pieces from a variety of locales, including Chad, Uganda and the Darfur region of Sudan. His work took him to over 60 countries. In 1991 he received a Lannan Literary Award for Nonfiction.

Before Hitchens' political shift, the American author and polemicist Gore Vidal was apt to speak of Hitchens as his "Dauphin" or "heir". In 2010, Hitchens attacked Vidal in a ''Vanity Fair'' piece headlined "Vidal Loco," calling him a "crackpot" for his adoption of 9/11 conspiracy theories. Also, on the back of his book ''Hitch-22,'' among the praise from notable writers and figures, a Vidal quote endorsing Hitchens as his successor is crossed out with a red 'X' and a message saying "NO C.H." His strong advocacy of the war in Iraq had gained Hitchens a wider readership, and in September 2005 he was named one of the "Top 100 Public Intellectuals" by ''Foreign Policy'' and ''Prospect'' magazines. An online poll ranked the 100 intellectuals, but the magazines noted that the rankings of Hitchens (5), Noam Chomsky (1), and Abdolkarim Soroush (15) were partly due to supporters publicising the vote.

In 2007 Hitchens' work for ''Vanity Fair'' won him the National Magazine Award in the category "Columns and Commentary". He was a finalist once more in the same category in 2008 for some of his columns in ''Slate'' but lost out to Matt Taibbi of ''Rolling Stone''. He won the National Magazine Award for Columns about Cancer in 2011. Hitchens also served on the Advisory Board of Secular Coalition for America and offered advice to Coalition on the acceptance and inclusion of nontheism in American life.

Literature reviews

Hitchens wrote a monthly essay on books in ''The Atlantic'' and contributed occasionally to other literary journals. One of his books, ''Unacknowledged Legislation: Writers in the Public Sphere'', is a collection of such works, and ''Love, Poverty and War'' contains a section devoted to literary essays. In ''Why Orwell Matters'', he defends Orwell's writings against modern critics as relevant today and progressive for his time. In the 2008 book ''Christopher Hitchens and His Critics: Terror, Iraq, and the Left'', many literary critiques are included of essays and other books of writers, such as David Horowitz and Edward Said.

During a three-hour interview by ''Book TV'', he named authors who have had influence on his views, including Aldous Huxley, George Orwell, Evelyn Waugh, P. G. Wodehouse and Conor Cruise O'Brien.

Political views

The ''San Francisco Chronicle'' referred to Hitchens as a "gadfly with gusto". In 2009, Hitchens was listed by ''Forbes'' magazine as one of the "25 most influential liberals in the U.S. media". However, the same article noted that he would "likely be aghast to find himself on this list", since it reduces his self-styled radicalism to mere liberalism. Hitchens' political perspective can be found in his wide ranging writings which include many of the political dialogues he published.

Socialism

Hitchens became a socialist "largely [as] the outcome of a study of history, taking sides ... in the battles over industrialism and war and empire." In 2001, he told Rhys Southan of ''Reason'' magazine that he could no longer say "I am a socialist." Socialists, he claimed, had ceased to offer a positive alternative to the capitalist system. Capitalism had become the more revolutionary economic system, and he welcomed globalisation as "innovative and internationalist", but added, "I don't think that the contradictions, as we used to say, of the system, are by any means all resolved." He stated that he had a renewed interest in the freedom of the individual from the state, but that he still considered libertarianism "ahistorical" both on the world stage and in the work of creating a stable and functional society, adding that libertarians are "more worried about the over-mighty state than the unaccountable corporation" whereas "the present state of affairs ... combines the worst of bureaucracy with the worst of the insurance companies."

In 2006, in a town hall meeting in Pennsylvania debating the Jewish Tradition with Martin Amis, Hitchens commented on his political philosophy by stating, "I am no longer a socialist, but I still am a Marxist". In a June 2010 interview with ''The New York Times'', he stated that "I still think like a Marxist in many ways. I think the materialist conception of history is valid. I consider myself a very conservative Marxist". In 2009, in an article for ''The Atlantic'' entitled "The Revenge of Karl Marx", Hitchens frames the late-2000s recession in terms of Marx's economic analysis and notes how much Marx admired the capitalist system he was calling for the end of, but says that Marx ultimately failed to grasp how revolutionary capitalist innovation was. Hitchens was an admirer of Che Guevara, commenting that "[Che's] death meant a lot to me and countless like me at the time, he was a role model, albeit an impossible one for us bourgeois romantics insofar as he went and did what revolutionaries were meant to do — fought and died for his beliefs." However, in an essay written in 1997, he distanced himself somewhat from some of Che's actions.

He continued to regard both Vladimir Lenin and Leon Trotsky as great men, and the October Revolution as a necessary event in the modernization of Russia. In 2005, Hitchens praised Lenin's creation of "secular Russia" and his discrediting of the Russian Orthodox Church, describing it as "an absolute warren of backwardness and evil and superstition".

Iraq War and the war on terror

The years after the ''fatwa'' issued against Salman Rushdie saw Hitchens looking for allies and friends. In the United States he became increasingly critical of what he called "excuse making" on the left. At the same time, he was attracted to the foreign policy ideas of some on the Republican-right that promoted pro-liberalism intervention, especially the neoconservative group that included Paul Wolfowitz. Around this time, he befriended the Iraqi dissident and businessman Ahmed Chalabi. In 2004, Hitchens stated that neoconservative support for US intervention in Iraq convinced him that he was "on the same side as the neo-conservatives" when it came to contemporary foreign policy issues. Hitchens had also been known to refer to his association with "temporary neocon allies".

Following the September 11 attacks, Hitchens and Noam Chomsky debated the nature of radical Islam and the proper response to it. In October 2001, Hitchens wrote criticisms of Chomsky in ''The Nation''. Chomsky responded and Hitchens issued a rebuttal to Chomsky to which Chomsky again responded. Approximately a year after the September 11 attacks and his exchanges with Chomsky, Hitchens left ''The Nation'', claiming that its editors, readers and contributors considered John Ashcroft a bigger threat than Osama bin Laden, and that they were making excuses on behalf of Islamist terrorism; in the following months he wrote articles increasingly at odds with his colleagues.

Christopher Hitchens argued the case for the Iraq War in a 2003 collection of essays entitled ''A Long Short War: The Postponed Liberation of Iraq'', and he has held numerous public debates on the topic with George Galloway and Scott Ritter. Though he admitted to the numerous failures of the war, and its high civilian casualties, he stood by the position that deposing Saddam Hussein was a long-overdue responsibility of the United States, after decades of poor policy, and that holding free elections in Iraq had been a success not to be scoffed at. He argued that a continued fight in Iraq against insurgents, whether they be former Saddam loyalists or Islamic extremists, was a fight worth having, and that those insurgents, not American forces, should have been the ones taking the brunt of the blame for a slow reconstruction and high civilian casualties.

Criticism of George W. Bush

Prior to September 11, 2001, and the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan, Hitchens was highly critical of Bush's "non-interventionist" foreign policy. He also criticized Bush's support of intelligent design and capital punishment.

Although Hitchens defended Bush's post-September 11 foreign policy, he criticized the actions of U.S. troops in Abu Ghraib and Haditha, and the U.S. government's use of waterboarding, which he unhesitatingly deemed as torture after being invited by ''Vanity Fair'' to voluntarily undergo it. In January 2006, Hitchens joined with four other individuals and four organizations, including the American Civil Liberties Union and Greenpeace, as plaintiffs in a lawsuit, ''ACLU v. NSA'', challenging Bush's warrantless domestic spying program; the lawsuit was filed by the ACLU.

Presidential endorsements

Hitchens would elaborate on his political views and ideological shift in a discussion with Eric Alterman on Bloggingheads.tv. In this discussion Hitchens revealed himself to be a supporter of Ralph Nader in the 2000 U.S. presidential election, who was disenchanted with the candidacy of both George W. Bush and Al Gore.

Hitchens made a brief return to ''The Nation'' just before the 2004 U.S. presidential election and wrote that he was "slightly" for Bush; shortly afterwards, ''Slate'' polled its staff on their positions on the candidates and mistakenly printed Hitchens' vote as pro-John Kerry. Hitchens shifted his opinion to "neutral", saying: "It's absurd for liberals to talk as if Kristallnacht is impending with Bush, and it's unwise and indecent for Republicans to equate Kerry with capitulation. There's no one to whom he can surrender, is there? I think that the nature of the jihadist enemy will decide things in the end".

In the 2008 presidential election, Hitchens in an article for ''Slate'' stated, "I used to call myself a single-issue voter on the essential question of defending civilization against its terrorist enemies and their totalitarian protectors, and on that 'issue' I hope I can continue to expose and oppose any ambiguity." He was critical of both main party candidates, Barack Obama and John McCain. Hitchens went on to support Obama, calling McCain "senile", and his choice of running mate Sarah Palin "absurd", calling Palin a "pathological liar" and a "national disgrace".

Blumenthal–Hitchens feud

Hitchens and Carol Blue chose to submit an affidavit to the trial managers of the Republican Party in the trial of impeachment of Bill Clinton. In the affidavit, Blue and Hitchens swore that their then-friend, Sidney Blumenthal, had described Monica Lewinsky as a stalker. This allegation contradicted Blumenthal's own sworn deposition in the trial, and it resulted in a hostile exchange of opinion in the public sphere between Hitchens and Blumenthal. Following the publication of Blumenthal's ''The Clinton Wars,'' Hitchens wrote several pieces in which he accused Blumenthal of manipulating the facts.

Israel–Palestine

Hitchens had said of himself, "I am an Anti-Zionist. I'm one of those people of Jewish descent who believes that Zionism would be a mistake even if there were no Palestinians."

A review of his autobiography ''Hitch-22'' in the ''Jewish Daily Forward'' refers to Hitchens as "a prominent anti-Zionist" and says that he views Zionism "as an injustice against the Palestinians". Others have commented on his anti-Zionism as well suggesting that his memoir was "marred by the occasional eruption of [his] anti-Zionism". The ''Jewish Daily Forward'' quoted him saying of Israel's prospects for the future, "I have never been able to banish the queasy inner suspicion that Israel just did not look, or feel, either permanent or sustainable."

In ''Slate'', Hitchens pondered the notion that, instead of curing antisemitism through the creation of a Jewish state, "Zionism has only replaced and repositioned" it, saying: "there are three groups of 6 million Jews. The first 6 million live in what the Zionist movement used to call Palestine. The second 6 million live in the United States. The third 6 million are distributed mainly among Russia, France, Britain, and Argentina. Only the first group lives daily in range of missiles that can be (and are) launched by people who hate Jews." Hitchens argued that instead of supporting Zionism, Jews should help "secularize and reform their own societies", believing that unless one is religious, "what the hell are you doing in the greater Jerusalem area in the first place?"

During a town hall function in Pennsylvania with Martin Amis, Hitchens stated that "one must not insult or degrade or humiliate people" and that he "would be opposed to this maltreatment of the Palestinians if it took place on a remote island with no geopolitical implications". Hitchens described Zionism as "an ethno-nationalist quasi-religious ideology" and stated his desire that if possible, he would "re-wind the tape [to] stop Hertzl from telling the initial demagogic lie (actually two lies) that a land without a people needs a people without a land".

He continued to say that Zionism "nonetheless has founded a sort of democratic state which isn't any worse in its practice than many others with equally dubious origins." He stated that settlement in order to achieve security for Israel is "doomed to fail in the worst possible way", and the cessation of this "appallingly racist and messianic delusion" would "confront the internal clerical and chauvinist forces which want to instate a theocracy for Jews". However, Hitchens contended that the "solution of withdrawal would not satisfy the jihadists" and wondered "What did they imagine would be the response of the followers of the Prophet [Muhammad]?" Hitchens bemoaned the transference into religious terrorism of Arab secularism as a means of democratization: "the most depressing and wretched spectacle of the past decade, for all those who care about democracy and secularism, has been the degeneration of Palestinian Arab nationalism into the theocratic and thanatocratic hell of Hamas and Islamic Jihad". He maintained that the Israel-Palestine conflict is a "trivial squabble" that has become "so dangerous to all of us" because of "the faith-based element."

Hitchens collaborated on this issue with prominent Palestinian advocate Edward Said, in 1988 publishing ''Blaming the Victims: Spurious Scholarship and the Palestinian Question''.

Domestic policy

Hitchens actively supported drug policy reform and called for the abolition of the "War on Drugs" which he described as an "authoritarian war" during a debate with William F. Buckley. He supported the legalization of cannabis for both medical and recreational purposes, citing it as a cure for glaucoma and as treatment for numerous side-effects induced by chemotherapy, including severe nausea, describing the prohibition of the drug as "sadistic". On the issue of abortion, Hitchens prioritized in affirming that he believed a fetus should be regarded as an "unborn child", but opposed the overturning of ''Roe v. Wade'' and supported the development of medical abortion techniques, and fundamentally believed in access to contraceptives and reproductive rights as "the only thing that is known to cure poverty", and in order to prevent surgical abortion altogether.

Other

Other issues Hitchens wrote on the subjects of included his support for the reunification of Ireland, abolition of the British monarchy, and his condemnation of the war crimes of Slobodan Milošević and Franjo Tuđman in Yugoslavia, and the Bosnian War.

Critiques of specific individuals

Hitchens was known for his scathing critiques of public figures. Three figures — Bill Clinton, Henry Kissinger, and Mother Teresa — were the targets of three separate full length texts, ''No One Left to Lie To: The Triangulations of William Jefferson Clinton'', ''The Trial of Henry Kissinger'', and ''The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice''. Hitchens also wrote book-length biographical essays about Thomas Jefferson (''Thomas Jefferson: Author of America''), George Orwell (''Why Orwell Matters''), and Thomas Paine (''Thomas Paine's "Rights of Man": A Biography'').

However, the majority of Hitchens's critiques took the form of short opinion pieces, some of the more notable being his critiques of: Jerry Falwell, George Galloway, Mel Gibson, Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, Michael Moore, Daniel Pipes, Ronald Reagan, Jesse Helms, and Cindy Sheehan.

Views on religion

Hitchens often spoke out against the Abrahamic religions, or what he called "the three great monotheisms" (Judaism, Christianity and Islam). He said: "The real axis of evil is Christianity, Judaism, and Islam". In his book, ''God Is Not Great'', Hitchens expanded his criticism to include all religions, including those rarely criticized by Western secularists such as Hinduism and neo-paganism. His book had mixed reactions, from praise in ''The New York Times'' for his "logical flourishes and conundrums" to accusations of "intellectual and moral shabbiness" in the ''Financial Times''. ''God Is Not Great'' was nominated for a National Book Award on 10 October 2007.

Hitchens contended that organized religion is "the main source of hatred in the world", "[v]iolent, irrational, intolerant, allied to racism, tribalism, and bigotry, invested in ignorance and hostile to free inquiry, contemptuous of women and coercive toward children", and that accordingly it "ought to have a great deal on its conscience". In ''God Is Not Great'', Hitchens contends that:

[A]bove all, we are in need of a renewed Enlightenment, which will base itself on the proposition that the proper study of mankind is man and woman [referencing Alexander Pope]. This Enlightenment will not need to depend, like its predecessors, on the heroic breakthroughs of a few gifted and exceptionally courageous people. It is within the compass of the average person. The study of literature and poetry, both for its own sake and for the eternal ethical questions with which it deals, can now easily depose the scrutiny of sacred texts that have been found to be corrupt and confected. The pursuit of unfettered scientific inquiry, and the availability of new findings to masses of people by electronic means, will revolutionize our concepts of research and development. Very importantly, the divorce between the sexual life and fear, and the sexual life and disease, and the sexual life and tyranny, can now at last be attempted, on the sole condition that we banish all religions from the discourse. And all this and more is, for the first time in our history, within the reach if not the grasp of everyone.

His book rendered him one of the major advocates of the "New Atheism" movement, and he also was made an Honorary Associate of the National Secular Society. Hitchens said he would accept an invitation from any religious leader who wished to debate with him. He also served on the advisory board of the Secular Coalition for America, a lobbying group for atheists and humanists in Washington, DC. In 2007, Hitchens began a series of written debates on the question "Is Christianity Good for the World?" with Christian theologian and pastor, Douglas Wilson, published in ''Christianity Today'' magazine. This exchange eventually became a book by the same title in 2008. During their book tour to promote the book, film producer Darren Doane sent a film crew to accompany them. Doane produced the film ''Collision'': "Is Christianity GOOD for the World?" which was released on 27 October 2009.

On 26 November 2010 Hitchens appeared in Toronto, Canada at the Munk Debates, where he debated religion with former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, a convert to Roman Catholicism. Blair argued religion is a force for good, while Hitchens was against it. Preliminary results on the Munk website said 56 per cent of the votes backed the proposition (Hitchens' position) before hearing the debate, with 22 per cent against (Blair's position), and 21 per cent undecided, with the undecided voters leaning toward Hitchens, giving him a 68 per cent to 32 per cent victory over Blair, after the debate.

In February 2006, Hitchens helped organize a pro-Denmark rally outside the Danish Embassy in Washington, DC in response to the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy.

Hitchens was accused by William A. Donohue of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Liberties of being particularly anti-Catholic. Hitchens responded "when religion is attacked in this country [...] the Catholic Church comes in for a little more than its fair share". Hitchens had also been accused of anti-Catholic bigotry by others, including Brent Bozell, Tom Piatak in ''The American Conservative'', and UCLA Law Professor Stephen Bainbridge. In an interview with ''Radar'' in 2007, Hitchens said that if the Christian right's agenda were implemented in the United States "It wouldn't last very long and would, I hope, lead to civil war, which they will lose, but for which it would be a great pleasure to take part." When Joe Scarborough on 12 March 2004 asked Hitchens whether he was "consumed with hatred for conservative Catholics", Hitchens responded that he was not and that he just thinks that "all religious belief is sinister and infantile". Piatak claimed that "A straightforward description of all Hitchens's anti-Catholic outbursts would fill every page in this magazine", noting particularly Hitchens' assertion that U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Roberts should not be confirmed because of his faith.

Hitchens was raised nominally Christian, and went to Christian boarding schools but from an early age declined to participate in communal prayers. Later in life, Hitchens discovered that he was of partially Jewish ancestry. According to Hitchens, when his brother Peter took his fiancée to meet their maternal grandmother, who was then in her 90s, she said of his fiancée, "She's Jewish, isn't she?" and then announced: "Well, I've got something to tell you. So are you." Hitchens found out that his maternal grandmother, Dorothy Levin, was raised Jewish (Dorothy's father and maternal grandfather had both been born Jewish, and Dorothy's maternal grandmother – Hitchens' matrilineal great-great-grandmother – was a convert to Judaism). Hitchens' maternal grandfather converted to Judaism before marrying Dorothy Levin. Hitchens' Jewish-born ancestors were immigrants from Eastern Europe (including Poland). In an article in the ''The Guardian'' on 14 April 2002, Hitchens stated that he could be considered Jewish because Jewish descent is matrilineal. In a 2010 interview at New York Public Library, Hitchens stated that he was against circumcision, a Jewish tradition, and that he believed "if anyone wants to saw off bits of their genitalia they should do when they're grown up and have made the decision for themselves".

In February 2010, he was named to the Freedom From Religion Foundation's Honorary Board of distinguished achievers.

Personal life

Marriages and children

Hitchens married Eleni Meleagrou, a Greek Cypriot, in a Greek Orthodox church in 1981; the couple had a son, Alexander and a daughter, Sophia. In 1989 Hitchens left Meleagrou for Carol Blue, an American writer. The couple married in a New York synagogue; they had a daughter, Antonia.

Relationship with his younger brother

Hitchens' younger brother by two-and-a-half years, Peter Hitchens, is a Christian and socially conservative journalist in London, although, like his brother, he had been a Trotskyist in the 1970s. The brothers had a protracted falling-out after Peter wrote that Christopher had once joked that he "didn't care if the Red Army watered its horses at Hendon" (a suburb of London). Christopher denied having said this and broke off contact with his brother. He then referred to his brother as "an idiot" in a letter to ''Commentary'', and the dispute spilled into other publications as well. Christopher eventually expressed a willingness to reconcile and to meet his new nephew (born in 1999); shortly thereafter the brothers gave several interviews together in which they said that their personal disagreements had been resolved. They appeared together on 21 June 2007 edition of the BBC current affairs discussion show ''Question Time''. The pair engaged in a formal televised debate for the first time on 3 April 2008, at Grand Valley State University, and at the Pew Forum on 12 October 2010.

Smoking and drinking

A June 2006 profile on Hitchens by NPR stated: "Hitchens is known for his love of cigarettes and alcohol — and his prodigious literary output." However, in late 2007 he gave up smoking, undergoing an epiphany in Madison, Wisconsin. His brother Peter later wrote of his surprise at this decision. It was while writing his memoir ''Hitch-22'' that he resumed smoking cigarettes and continued until his cancer diagnosis. Hitchens admitted to drinking heavily; in 2003 he wrote that his daily intake of alcohol was enough "to kill or stun the average mule", noting that many great writers "did some of their finest work when blotto, smashed, polluted, shitfaced, squiffy, whiffled, and three sheets to the wind."

British politician George Galloway, founder of the socialist Respect Party, on his way to testify in front of a United States Senate sub-committee investigating the scandals in the U.N. Oil-for-Food programme, called Hitchens a "drink-sodden ex-Trotskyist popinjay", to which Hitchens quickly replied, "only some of which is true". Later, in a column for ''Slate'' promoting his debate with Galloway which was to take place on 14 September 2005, he elaborated on his prior response: "He says that I am an ex-Trotskyist (true), a 'popinjay' (true enough, since the word's original Webster's definition is a target for arrows and shots), and that I cannot hold a drink (here I must protest)."

Oliver Burkeman writes, "Since the parting of ways on Iraq [...] Hitchens claims to have detected a new, personalised nastiness in the attacks on him, especially over his fabled consumption of alcohol. He welcomes being attacked as a drinker 'because I always think it's a sign of victory when they move on to the ad hominem.' He drinks, he says, 'because it makes other people less boring. I have a great terror of being bored. But I can work with or without it. It takes quite a lot to get me to slur.'"

In the question and answer session following a speech Hitchens gave to the Commonwealth Club of California on 9 July 2009, one audience member asked what was Hitchens' favorite whisky. Hitchens replied that "the best blended scotch in the history of the world" is Johnnie Walker Black Label. He also playfully indicated that it was the favorite whisky of, among others, the Iraqi Ba'ath Party, the Palestinian Authority, the Libyan dictatorship, and "large branches of the Saudi Arabian Royal Family". He concluded his answer by calling it the "breakfast of champions" and exhorted the audience to "accept no substitute".

In his 2010 memoir ''Hitch-22'', Hitchens wrote: "There was a time when I could reckon to outperform all but the most hardened imbibers, but I now drink relatively carefully." He described his current drinking routine on working-days as follows: "At about half past midday, a decent slug of Mr. Walker's amber restorative, cut with Perrier water (an ideal delivery system) and no ice. At luncheon, perhaps half a bottle of red wine: not always more but never less. Then back to the desk, and ready to repeat the treatment at the evening meal. No 'after dinner drinks' — ​most especially nothing sweet and never, ever any brandy. 'Nightcaps' depend on how well the day went, but always the mixture as before. No mixing: no messing around with a gin here and a vodka there."

Reflecting on the lifestyle that supported his career as a writer he said:

I always knew there was a risk in the bohemian lifestyle ... I decided to take it because it helped my concentration, it stopped me being bored — it stopped other people being boring. It would make me want to prolong the conversation and enhance the moment. If you ask: would I do it again? I would probably say yes. But I would have quit earlier hoping to get away with the whole thing. I decided all of life is a wager and I'm going to wager on this bit ... In a strange way I don't regret it. It's just impossible for me to picture life without wine, and other things, fueling the company, keeping me reading, energising me. It worked for me. It really did.

Esophageal cancer and death

In June 2010, Hitchens postponed his book tour for ''Hitch-22'' to undergo treatment for esophageal cancer. He announced that he was undergoing treatment in a ''Vanity Fair'' piece entitled "Topic of Cancer". Hitchens said that he recognised the long-term prognosis was far from positive, and that he would be a "very lucky person to live another five years". In November 2010, Hitchens canceled a scheduled appearance in New York, where he was to debate religion writers David Hazony and Stephen Prothero on the subject of the Ten Commandments. Earlier that year, he published a piece in ''Vanity Fair'' on the subject, and was working on a book about the Ten Commandments as well.

During his illness, Hitchens was under the care of Francis Collins and was the subject of Collins' new cancer treatment which maps out the human genome and selectively targets damaged DNA.

In April 2011, Hitchens was forced to cancel an appearance at the American Atheist Convention, and instead sent a letter that stated, "Nothing would have kept me from joining you except the loss of my voice (at least my speaking voice) which in turn is due to a long argument I am currently having with the specter of death." He closed with "And don't keep the faith." The letter also dismissed the notion of a possible deathbed conversion, in which he claimed that "redemption and supernatural deliverance appears even more hollow and artificial to me than it did before." In June 2011, he spoke to a University of Waterloo audience via a home video link.

In October 2011, Hitchens made a public appearance at the Texas Freethought Convention in Houston, TX. ''Atheist Alliance of America'' was also a participant in the joint convention.

In November 2011, George Eaton wrote in the ''New Statesman'':

The tragedy of Hitchens' illness is that it came at a time when he enjoyed a larger audience than ever. Of his tight circle of friends – Amis, Fenton, McEwan, Rushdie – Hitchens was the last to gain international renown, yet he is now read more widely than any of them." Eaton revealed that Hitchens would like to be remembered as a man who fought totalitarianism in all its forms although many remember him as a "lefty who turned right", and his support of the Iraq War and not his support of the War in Bosnia on the side of the Moslems. Eaton concluded, "The great polemicist is certain to be remembered, but, as he is increasingly aware, perhaps not as he would like."

Hitchens died on December 15th, 2011 at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.

In accordance with his wishes, his body was donated to medical research.

Reactions to death

Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair said, "Christopher Hitchens was a complete one-off, an amazing mixture of writer, journalist, polemicist, and unique character. He was fearless in the pursuit of truth and any cause in which he believed. And there was no belief he held, that he did not advocate with passion, commitment and brilliance. He was an extraordinary, compelling and colorful human being whom it was a privilege to know."

Richard Dawkins, British evolutionary biologist at the University of Oxford and a friend of Hitchens', said, "I think he was one of the greatest orators of all time. He was a polymath, a wit, immensely knowledgeable, and a valiant fighter against all tyrants including imaginary supernatural ones."

Norman Finkelstein, American political scientist and author, wrote, "When I first learned that Hitchens was diagnosed with an excruciating and terminal cancer, it caused me to doubt my atheism. The news came just as Hitchens was about to go on a book tour for his long-awaited memoir. It was as if he was setting out on his victory lap when the adulating crowds were supposed to fawn over him and — wham! — his legs were lopped off at the kneecaps. The irony could not be more perfect: the god that the vindictive but witty Mr. Hitchens made a career scoffing at turns out to be ... vindictive but witty. When I heard that Hitchens was dead, I took a deep breath. The air felt cleaner, as if after a 40-day and 40-night downpour." Finkelstein also added, "I get no satisfaction from Hitchens's passing. Although he was the last to know it, every death is a tragedy, if only for the bereft child — or, as in the case of Cindy Sheehan, bereft parent — left behind.

Sam Harris, American writer and neuroscientist, wrote, "I have been privileged to witness the gratitude that so many people feel for Hitch’s life and work — for, wherever I speak, I meet his fans. On my last book tour, those who attended my lectures could not contain their delight at the mere mention of his name — and many of them came up to get their books signed primarily to request that I pass along their best wishes to him. It was wonderful to see how much Hitch was loved and admired — and to be able to share this with him before the end. I will miss you, brother."

Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health and former head of the Human Genome Project who helped treat Hitchens' illness, wrote, "I will miss Christopher. I will miss the brilliant turn of phrase, the good-natured banter, the wry sideways smile when he was about to make a remark that would make me laugh out loud. No doubt he now knows the answer to the question of whether there is more to the spirit than just atoms and molecules. I hope he was surprised by the answer. I hope to hear him tell about it someday. He will tell it really well."

British columnist and author Peter Hitchens, who had a tumultuous relationship with his older brother Christopher, wrote that he and Christopher "got on surprisingly well in the past few months, better than for about 50 years as it happens," and praised his brother as "courageous."

Irish-American political journalist Alexander Cockburn, founder of the left-wing political magazine ''CounterPunch'' wrote an obituary critical of Hitchens, criticizing his support for the Iraq War, criticisms of Mother Teresa, and criticisms of their mutual friend Edward Said and concluded, "I found the Hitchens cult of recent years entirely mystifying. He endured his final ordeal with pluck, sustained indomitably by his wife Carol."

Tributes followed from the philosopher Daniel Dennett, the physicist Lawrence Krauss, the actor Stephen Fry, the writer Ian McEwan, the philosopher A.C. Grayling; and ''Vanity Fair'', in which he was remembered as an "incomparable critic and masterful rhetorician".

Film and television appearances

As referenced from the Internet Movie Database, Hitchens Web or Charlie Rose. {|class="wikitable" style="text-align:center" |- ! Year ! Film and/or Television |- |1984 |align="left" | ''Opinions'': "Greece to their Rome" |- |1988 |align="left" | ''Frontiers (TV series)'' |- |1993 |align="left" | ''Everything You Need to Know'' |- |1994 |align="left" | ''Tracking Down Maggie: The Unofficial Biography of Margaret Thatcher'' |- |1994 |align="left" | ''Hell's Angel'' |- |1996 |align="left" | ''Where's Elvis This Week?'' |- |1996–2010 |align="left" | ''Charlie Rose (talk show)'' (13 episodes) |- |1998 |align="left" | ''Princess Diana: The Mourning After'' |- |1999–2002 |align="left" | ''Dennis Miller Live'' (TV show) (4 episodes) |- |2002 |align="left" | ''The Trials of Henry Kissinger'' |- |2003 |align="left" | ''Hidden in Plain Sight'' |- |2003–2009 |align="left" | ''Real Time with Bill Maher'' (TV show) (6 episodes) |- |2004 |align="left" | ''Mel Gibson: God's Lethal Weapon'' |- |2004–2006 |align="left" | ''Newsnight'' (TV show) (3 episodes) |- |2004–2010 |align="left" | ''The Daily Show'' (TV show) (4 episodes) |- |2005 |align="left" | ''Penn & Teller: Bullshit!'' (TV show)(1 episode, s03e05) |- |2005 |align="left" | ''The Al Franken Show'' (TV show)(1 episode) |- |2005 |align="left" | ''Confronting Iraq: Conflict and Hope'' |- |2005 |align="left" | ''Heaven on Earth: The Rise and Fall of Socialism'' |- |2005–2008 |align="left" | ''Hardball with Chris Matthews'' (TV show)(3 episodes) |- |2006 |align="left" | ''American Zeitgeist'' |- |2006 |align="left" | ''Blog Wars'' |- |2007 |align="left" | ''Manufacturing Dissent'' |- |2007 |align="left" | ''Question Time (TV series)'' (1 episode) |- |2007 |align="left" | ''Your Mommy Kills Animals'' |- |2007 |align="left" | ''Personal Che'' |- |2007 |align="left" | ''Heckler'' |- |2007 |align="left" | ''In Pot We Trust'' |- |2008 |align="left" | ''Discussions with Richard Dawkins'': Episode 1: "The Four Horsemen" |- |2008 | style="text-align:left;"| ''Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed '' |- |2009 |align="left" | ''Holy Hell'' |- |2009 |align="left" | ''Presidency'' |- |2009 |align="left" | ''Collision: "Is Christianity GOOD for the World?"'' |- |2010 |align="left" | ''Phil Ochs: There But For Fortune'' |}

Selected publications

1984 ''Cyprus''. Quartet. Revised editions as ''Hostage to History: Cyprus from the Ottomans to Kissinger'', 1989 (Farrar, Straus & Giroux) and 1997 (Verso)

1988 ''Blaming the Victims: Spurious Scholarship and the Palestinian Question'' (contributor; co-editor with Edward Said) Verso, ISBN 0-86091-887-4 Reissued, 2001

1990 ''The Monarchy'', Chatto & Windus Ltd

1990 ''Blood, Class and Nostalgia: Anglo-American Ironies'', Farrar Straus & Giroux (T)(June 1990)

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, ISBN 0-465-03050-5

2004 ''Love, Poverty, and War: Journeys and Essays'', Thunder's Mouth, Nation Books, ISBN 1-56025-580-3

2005 ''Thomas Jefferson: Author of America'', Eminent Lives/Atlas Books/HarperCollins Publishers, ISBN 0-06-059896-4

2007 "Thomas Paine's Rights of Man: A Biography ", Atlantic Monthly Press, ISBN 0871139553

2007 ''The Portable Atheist: Essential Readings for the Non-Believer'', [Editor] Perseus Publishing. ISBN 978-0-306-81608-6

2007 ''God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything'', Twelve/Hachette Book Group USA/Warner Books, ISBN 0-446-57980-7 / Published in the UK as ''God Is Not Great: The Case Against Religion'', Atlantic Books, ISBN 978-1-84354-586-6

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 Douglas Wilson), Canon Press, ISBN 1-59128-053-2

2010 ''Hitch-22: A Memoir'', Twelve, ISBN 978-0-446-54033-9

2011 ''Arguably: Essays by Christopher Hitchens'', Twelve. UK edition as ''Arguably: Selected Prose'', Atlantic, ISBN 1-4555-0277-4 / ISBN 978-1-4555-0277-6

References

External links

Daily Hitchens, an archive of material on or by Hitchens

in 2010

Drexel Interview (One-hour video interview) with Paula Marantz Cohen, June 2010

Christopher Hitchens collected news and commentary at ''The Boston Globe''

"Journalist Christopher Hitchens fully embraces the Bush war camp" from the World Socialist Website, October 2002

"Christopher Hitchens" feature story in ''Prospect'' magazine, May 2008

"Incendiary Author Spares No Targets" feature story in ''The New Zealand Herald'', May 2008

"Such, Such are His Joys" David Brooks assessment in ''The New York Times'', 1 July 2010

Hitchens on Dying with Cancer, video interview with ''The Atlantic'', August 2010

"Christopher Hitchens: 'You have to choose your future regrets'" ''The Guardian'', 13 November 2010

"Christopher Hitchens's Jewish Problem" feature article on ''Jewish Ideas Daily,'' 13 December 2010

A debate between Hitchens and Berlinski 2010

Outspoken and outrageous: Christopher Hitchens a 60 Minutes profile aired 6 March 2011

''Booknotes'' interview with Hitchens on ''For the Sake of Argument'', 17 October 1993.

;Articles by Hitchens

Contributor page at ''Vanity Fair''

Column archive at ''The Atlantic''

Article archive at ''The Guardian''

Hitchens articles at ''Slate''

Article archive at Journalisted

Category:1949 births Category:2011 deaths Category:Alumni of Balliol College, Oxford Category:Anti-Zionism Category:Anti–Vietnam War activists Category:Antitheists Category:Atheism activists Category:English people of Jewish descent Category:English people of Polish descent Category:British republicans Category:Cancer deaths in Texas Category:Deaths from esophageal cancer Category:English atheists Category:English biographers Category:English emigrants to the United States Category:English essayists Category:English expatriates in the United States Category:English humanists Category:English journalists Category:English Marxists Category:English political writers Category:Genital integrity activists Category:Materialists Category:Naturalized citizens of the United States Category:Old Leysians Category:People from Portsmouth Category:Slate (magazine) people Category:Socialist Workers Party (UK) members Category:The Nation (U.S. magazine) people Category:University Challenge contestants

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