The term “witch hunt” (or its variants) has an unhappy history. It first appears in the English language in the early 17th century. Unlike its modern usage, it then referred quite literally to hunting those who practiced the dark arts. The Salem Witch Trials were the typical outcome of such Read more…
If Christopher Hitchens didn’t exist, we wouldn’t be able to invent him.” That blurb of praise from the novelist Ian McEwan may have helped to sell published collections of essays, but it turns out to be more true than its source perhaps intended. The late journalist and New Atheist kingpin Read more…
The title of this book is quite provocative, inviting a potential reader to be unsure what he is going to think about it. Everyone knows that Christopher Hitchens was the champeeeen professional wrestler of atheism—no less aggressive than one of those guys, and quite a bit more articulate. So what could possibly Read more…
Of all that can transpire in a bedroom, nothing can be as titillating to the religious, or those of us who write about them, as a dying man’s conversion. Oscar Wilde’s deathbed baptism remains a coup for the Roman Catholic Church 116 years later, and an embarrassment for those who cherish his Read more…