<div>A &ldquo;brief but potent&rdquo; appreciation of one of the most influential and revolutionary works of political thought &ldquo;mixing biography, criticism and philosophy&rdquo; (Los Angeles Times). Christopher Hitchens, the #1 New York Times&ndash;bestselling author of God Is Not Great, has been called a Tom Paine for our times. In this addition to the Books that Changed the World Series, Hitchens vividly introduces Paine and his Declaration of the Rights of Man, the world&rsquo;s foremost defense of democracy. An outraged response to Edmund Burke&rsquo;s attack on the French Revolution, Paine&rsquo;s immortal text is a passionate defense of man&rsquo;s inalienable rights, and the key to his reputation. Ever since the day of its publication in 1791, Declaration of the Rights of Man has been celebrated, criticized, maligned, suppressed, and co-opted. But in Thomas Paine&rsquo;s Rights of Man, Hitchens marvels at its forethought and revels in its contentiousness. Famous as a polemicist and provocative commentator, Hitchens himself is a political descendant of the great pamphleteer. Here, he demonstrates how Paine&rsquo;s book became the philosophical cornerstone of the United States of America, and how &ldquo;in a time when both rights and reason are under several kinds of open and covert attack, the life and writing of Thomas Paine will always be part of the arsenal on which we shall need to depend.&rdquo; Enlivened by Hitchens&rsquo;s extraordinary prose, this &ldquo;elegant and useful primer . . . ought still to engage us all&rdquo; (The Guardian). &ldquo;Paine, as Hitchens notes in this lucid and fast-moving appreciation, has no proper memorial anywhere; this slender book makes a good start.&rdquo; &mdash;Kirkus Reviews</div>

Thomas Paine's Rights of Man

<div>This second volume of Christopher Isherwood's remarkable diaries opens on his fifty-sixth birthday, as the fifties give way to the decade of social and sexual revolution. Isherwood takes the reader from the bohemian sunshine of Southern California to a London finally swinging free of post-war gloom, to the racy cosmopolitanism of New York and to the raw Australian outback. He charts his ongoing quest for spiritual certainty under the guidance of his Hindu guru, and he reveals in reckless detail the emotional drama of his love for the American painter Don Bachardy, thirty years his junior and struggling to establish his own artistic identity.The diaries are crammed with wicked gossip and probing psychological insights about the cultural icons of the time&#8212;Francis Bacon, Richard Burton, Leslie Caron, Marianne Faithfull, David Hockney, Mick Jagger, Hope Lange, W. Somerset Maugham, John Osborne, Vanessa Redgrave, Tony Richardson, David O. Selznick, Igor Stravinsky, Gore Vidal, and many others. But the diaries are most revealing about Isherwood himself&#8212;his fiction (including A Single Man and Down There on a Visit), his film writing, his college teaching, and his affairs of the heart. He moves easily from Beckett to Brando, from arthritis to aggression, from Tennessee Williams to foot powder, from the opening of Cabaret on Broadway (which he skipped) to a close analysis of Gide.In the background run references to the political and historical events of the period: the anxieties of the Cold War, Yuri Gagarin's spaceflight, de Gaulle and Algeria, the eruption of violence in America's inner cities, the Vietnam War, the Summer of Love, the moon landing, and the raising and lowering of hemlines. Isherwood is well known for his prophetic portraits of a morally bankrupt Europe on the eve of World War II; in this unparalleled chronicle, The Sixties, he turns his fearless eye on the decade that more than any other has shaped the way we live now.</div>

The Sixties

<div>"A balanced, readable portrait. A refreshing perspective.&#8221; &#8212;New York Times Book ReviewWith intelligence, insight, eloquence, and wit, bestselling author Christopher Hitchens gives us an artful portrait of a complex, formative figure in American history and his turbulent era.In this unique biography of Thomas Jefferson, leading journalist and social critic Christopher Hitchens offers a startlingly new and provocative interpretation of our Founding Father&#8212;a man conflicted by power who wrote the Declaration of Independence and acted as ambassador to France yet yearned for a quieter career in the Virginia legislature. A masterly writer, Jefferson was an awkward public speaker. A professed proponent of emancipation, he elided the issue of slavery from the Declaration of Independence and continued to own human property. A reluctant candidate, he left an indelible presidential legacy.</div>

Thomas Jefferson

<div>“A forthright memoir of growing up harshly amid revolution and religious restraint . . . Hirsi Ali’s account is a significant contribution to our times.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review) One of today’s most admired and controversial political figures, Ayaan Hirsi Ali burst into international headlines following the murder of Theo van Gogh by an Islamist who threatened that she would be next. She made headlines again when she was stripped of her citizenship and resigned from the Dutch Parliament. Infidel shows the coming of age of this distinguished political superstar and champion of free speech as well as the development of her beliefs, iron will, and extraordinary determination to fight injustice. Raised in a strict Muslim family, Hirsi Ali survived civil war, female mutilation, brutal beatings, adolescence as a devout believer during the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood, and life in four troubled, unstable countries ruled largely by despots. She escaped from a forced marriage and sought asylum in the Netherlands, where she earned a college degree in political science, tried to help her tragically depressed sister adjust to the West, and fought for the rights of Muslim women and the reform of Islam as a member of Parliament. Under constant threat, demonized by reactionary Islamists and politicians, disowned by her father, and expelled from family and clan, she refuses to be silenced. Ultimately a celebration of triumph over adversity, Hirsi Ali’s story tells how a bright little girl evolves out of dutiful obedience to become an outspoken, pioneering freedom fighter. As Western governments struggle to balance democratic ideals with religious pressures, no other book could be more timely or more significant.</div>

Christopher Hitchens
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Books By Christopher Hitchens (2 Books)

Thomas Paine's Rights of Man

Thomas Jefferson

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Christopher HitchensFollow this author

Books By Christopher Hitchens (2 Books)

Thomas Paine's Rights of Man

Thomas Jefferson

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© 2024 OPEN ROAD INTEGRATED MEDIA

Christopher Hitchens
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