How Hitchens Can Save the Left

Rediscovering Fearless Liberalism in an Age of Counter-Enlightenment

By: Matt Johnson

Narrated by: Mike Chamberlain

Length: 12 hrs and 38 mins

Publisher's summary

Christopher Hitchens was for many years considered one of the fiercest and most eloquent left-wing polemicists in the world. But on much of today's left, he's remembered as a defector, a warmonger, and a sellout—a supporter of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq who traded his left-wing principles for neoconservatism after the September 11 attacks.

In How Hitchens Can Save the Left, Matt Johnson argues that this easy narrative gets Hitchens exactly wrong. Hitchens was a lifelong champion of free inquiry, humanism, and universal liberal values. He was an internationalist who believed all people should have the liberty to speak and write openly, to be free of authoritarian domination, and to escape the arbitrary constraints of tribe, faith, and nation. He was a figure of the Enlightenment and a man of the left until the very end, and his example has never been more important.

Across the democratic world, free speech, individual rights, and other basic liberal values are losing their power to inspire. Hitchens's case for universal Enlightenment principles won't just help genuine liberals mount a resistance to the emerging illiberal orthodoxies on the left and the right. It will also remind us how to think and speak fearlessly in defense of those principles.

©2023 Matt Johnson (P)2023 Kalorama

Miss you Hitch

A surprisingly well research examination of Hitch's life that was neither patronizing nor filled with clichés. The author gives a broad view of the man and makes a strong case for Hitch's consistent application of his principled opposition to totalitarianism of any stripe and his championing of the individual and universal. A classical liberal in every regard and ready these principles fully even as his political identification evolved or he made or lost friends. It is easy to move from review of this book to praise for Hitch, but this is no hagiography. It's successful thesis, that Hitch did not flip sides during the Iraq war and since and remained committed to his principles was made with broad references to his work and his critics. This was not a screed in any sense of the word, but a deliberate and well-researched and defended argument which captures the real Hitch and adds greatly to the early scholarship on a man who will be gradually thought of in whatever way people wish as more years pass and people learn about him who did not have the honor to live during his lifetime.

very well written, topical piece

As a Hitchens fan missing his distinct voice and political commentary for the past 11 years, I thoroughly enjoyed and appreciated the arguments presented in this well researched and timely book.

well done

Very well done. We all needed this book. Hitchens was one of the greatest minds ever.

A nice review for those familiar with Hitchens

It's ok. If you have read Hitchens's work, there's nothing new in this book. Feels like half fan fiction --a rough imitation of Hitchens's own writing-- half literature review like what you'd find in a mediocre Master's thesis. The reading is good.