A Critique of Britain's Favourite Fetish

The Monarchy

On the occasion of the Queen's Diamond Jubilee, Christopher Hitchens takes on the monarchy.

Christopher Hitchens was an English-born American author, journalist and literary critic. He was a columnist at Vanity Fair, The Atlantic, World Affairs, The Nation, Slate, Free Inquiry, and a variety of other media in a career that spanned more than four decades and made him a prominent public intellectual, and a staple of talk shows and lecture circuits. His books include The Monarchy; Blood, Class, and Nostalgia; No One Left to Lie Toand God Is Not Great. He died in 2011.

As the Duke and Duchess of Sussex bring renewed focus to the monarchy, now is the perfect time to re-examine Christopher Hitchens’s powerful polemic. 
 
In this scathing essay, Christopher Hitchens looks at the relationship of the press and the public to the royal family, unpacking the tautology and contradictory arguments that prop it up. In his inimitable style, Hitchens argues that our desire not to profane or disturb the monarchy is a failure of reason and a confusion of reality. Fealty to the magic of monarchy stops us looking objectively at our own history and hinders open-minded criticism of our present. It is time we outgrew it. 
 
 With the recent birth of royal baby Archie, during a time of austerity and national inequality, Hitchens’s 10,000-word critique is even more relevant today than when it was first published in 1990. 
 
 'Christopher is one of the most terrifying rhetoricians that the world has yet seen' Martin Amis

Hitchens vs Blair

Is religion a force for good in the World?

An intellectual faceoff... full of sharp humour and a little pathos

The Munk Debates are Canada's premier public policy event. Held semi-annually, the debates provide leading thinkers with a global forum to discuss the major public policy issues facing the world and Canada. Each event takes place in Toronto in front of a live audience. The Munk Debates are a project of the Aurea Foundation; a charitable organization established in 2006 by philanthropists Peter and Melanie Munk to promote public policy research and discussion. For more information visit www.munkdebates.com.

On November 26, 2010, intellectual juggernaut and staunch atheist Christopher Hitchens went head-to-head with former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, one of the Western worlds most openly devout political leaders, on the highly charged topic of religion. Few world leaders have had a greater hand in shaping current events than Blair; few writers have been more outspoken and polarizing than Hitchens. 
 
Hitchens and Blair squared off on the contentious questions that continue to dog the topic of religion in our globalized world: How does faith influence our actions? What is the role of people of faith in the public sphere? Is religious doctrine rigid, or should we allow for flexibility in our interpretations? 
 
For the first time ever, this exclusive debate, which played out to a sold-out audience, is now available in print, along with candid interviews with Hitchens and Blair. Sharp, provocative, and thoroughly engrossing, Hitchens vs. Blair is an electrifying intellectual sparring match on the oldest question: Is religion a force for good in the world?

Richard Dawkins

Sam Harris

Daniel C. Dennett

Christopher Hitchens

Stephen Fry

This transcript  is of historical significance and belongs in the library of all thinking people. A classic for our time...and all time.

Michael Shermer, Publisher Skeptic magazine, monthly columnist Scientific American, Presidential Fellow Chapman University, author of Heavens on Earth, The Moral Arc, The Believing Brain, and Why People Believe Weird Things

I have a short list of intellectual heroes, and Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, and Daniel Dennett each have a place on it—not because I always agree with their views, but because I'm in awe of the way they form, express, and defend their views. If thinking were a sport, these four would be national superstars—and reading The Four Horsemen feels like having a front row seat at the all-star game. This is more than a book about atheism and religion—it's a lesson in how to use our intellect to cut through the haze of delusion and misconception inherent in any human society.

Tim Urban, author of the blog 'Wait But Why'

We are slowly losing the hard-won right, gained by brave heroes of the enlightenment such as Voltaire and Hume, to be free to criticise religion without persecution and prosecution; the crime of blasphemy is creeping back. The words of Hitchens, Dawkins, Harris and Dennett are needed more than ever. These are the heirs to Voltaire.

Matt Ridley, author of The Evolution of Everything

I was gripped. Throughout this erudite conversation the humility and openness of science shines against religion’s arrogance, hypocrisy and sheer gall in just ‘making stuff up’. How refreshing it is.

If you had to pick a place for our pop culture to change, Sun Records on December 4, 1956 at a jam session with Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins and Elvis Presley is a pretty good symbolic spot.  This conversation on September 30th, 2007 with Daniel, Sam, Richard, and Elvis . . . I mean Hitch at Hitch’s pad is as good a place as any to mark the start of the Atheist revolution.

What a gift to be able to eavesdrop on this conversation!  These four are the kinds of thinkers we don’t get enough of anymore; unapologetic, uncompromising, and deeply generous with one another as well as anyone who happens to be listening in. You needn’t be an atheist or a horseman to relish every word of this delightful book. You just need to be hungry for genuine intellectual inquiry and open debate. And, let’s face it, you’re probably starving.

Meghan Daum, author of The Unspeakable: And Other Subjects Of Discussion

Reading this book is like to getting to spend a profound afternoon with some of our greatest intellectuals. Blasphemous, erudite, devastatingly truthful, slyly hilarious.  I gasped, I laughed, I nodded, and sometimes had to stop and just think for a moment about what they'd dared to say.

Julia Sweeney, author of Letting Go of God

For people inclined to disbelieve supernatural explanations -- in America, we few, we happy few, we band of brothers and sisters -- The Four Horsemen is a smart, fun, funny, seriously provocative primer.

Thrilling...Challenging...This bracing exchange of ideas crackles with energy...an invigorating example of what happens when astute, inquisitive minds engage together on deep questions.

Christopher Hitchens

Praise for The Four Horsemen

This transcript is of historical significance and belongs in the library of all thinking people. A classic for our time...and all time.

I have a short list of intellectual heroes, and Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, and Daniel Dennett each have a place on it—not because I always agree with their views, but because I'm in awe of th ...

We are slowly losing the hard-won right, gained by brave heroes of the enlightenment such as Voltaire and Hume, to be free to criticise religion without persecution and prosecution; the crime of blasphemy is creepin ...

This transcript is of historical significance and belongs in the library of all thinking people. A classic for our time...and all time.

I have a short list of intellectual heroes, and Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, and Daniel Dennett each have a place on it—not because I always agree with their views, but because I'm in awe of th ...

We are slowly losing the hard-won right, gained by brave heroes of the enlightenment such as Voltaire and Hume, to be free to criticise religion without persecution and prosecution; the crime of blasphemy is creepin ...

This transcript is of historical significance and belongs in the library of all thinking people. A classic for our time...and all time.

I have a short list of intellectual heroes, and Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, and Daniel Dennett each have a place on it—not because I always agree with their views, but because I'm in awe of th ...

We are slowly losing the hard-won right, gained by brave heroes of the enlightenment such as Voltaire and Hume, to be free to criticise religion without persecution and prosecution; the crime of blasphemy is creepin ...

Books by Christopher Hitchens

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