"Arguably" is the fourth collection of essays written by Christopher Hitchens. Most of the essays originated in publications such as Vanity Fair, the Atlantic, or Slate, all being published from 2000-2011.
The topics in this collection range from literature, domestic politics, International affairs, history of the 20th century, to human rights, religion, the necessary integrity of words and social mores (including but not limited to oral sex).
The essays are always pitted against a writer, literary critic or scholar whose assertions are found to be suspect and even flawed in contrast to Hitchens informed handling of the subject. The reader is expected to be knowledgeable and to keep pace with Hitchens vantage pointed opinion's, which are always grounded from his extensive career in Journalism and his massive array of literary and historical references.

110 essays are organized into 6 sections:

"All American" focuses on the history, policies, and distinguished Political or literary figures in the United States:

Thomas Jeffersons executive leadership is discussed in the "Barbary wars", which is treated as a Preamble to the first International conflict of the United States and being very much relevant in respect to our current war on terror.
During the infancy of the United States, President Jefferson was claiming the right to free-trade without having to accommodate the ultimatum of paying tribute or continuing to have American sailors kidnapped and to serve as "infidel" slaves to the Barbary regimes. Hitchens notes that this conflict "gave the Americans an inkling of the fact that they were, and always be bound up with international affairs" while trying to protect their interests in International trade.

Hitchens is very proficient in giving the reader a qualified understanding of the figure in discussion with the essays overlapping in areas, allowing a nuanced view of the formative experiences of Abraham Lincoln coupled with the essay on the abolitionist/slave emancipator John Brown.
Here Lincoln is cited to have denounced John Browns reprisal raids for the murder of fellow abolitionists and later shown to characterize the Unions reaction in the Civil war as one great "John Brown raid" into the South.

"JFK: In sickness and in stealth" gives an unabashed account by peeling away layers from JFK's public persona, exposing a large effort of concealing serious health problems and an extraordinary amount of constant medicating that could affect his performance in office.
Astonishing it was to learn was that JFK was heavily dependent on large amounts of drugs in order to keep himself propped up, appearing to be a vibrant and functioning person. Even more unsettling was to read of JFK's suffering from a multitude of illnesses while trying to stay engaged in the Cuban missile crises or the "bay of pigs" fiasco.

The section closes with essays on modern Social issues like capital punishment in "Old Enough to Die", where Hitchens effectively cites the hypocrisy of America as the top executor of Juveniles, competing with Iran, Yemen, Saudi Arabia and Nigeria.

Always critical of the ongoing War in Iraq and its mismanagement, Hitchens gives a lesser known example of how things have gone awry with the violation of American soldiers constitutional rights with
"In Defense of Foxhole Atheists".
The soldiers interviewed, exposed the constant bombardment of religious pamphlets being handed to servicemen/women by State sponsored Chaplains, calling for a "religious based military" while denouncing the constitutional protection of the separation of Church and State.
The soldiers interviewed also confirmed that this type of activity was even endorsed by top generals, such as Gen. David Petraeus - with the ambition of proselytizing religion to the peoples of the countries that the US finds itself occupying, at the taxpayers expense.


"Eclectic Affinities", covers everything from Karl Marx, Rebecca West, Edmund Burke, Graham Greene, George Orwell (one of Hitchens all time favorite authors), to JK Rowling.
A large number of novels mentioned address Europe throughout the first half of the 20th century. Whether concerning Marxism, Nazi, Fascism, Capitalism, socialism or communism, these writer's short stories highlight the movements behind or alongside both World Wars, allegories of the failure of movements like Stalinism and a call for democratic governments.
Hitchens knows when to correct the assesment of the author under discussion and/or of the authors biographer, whose portrayal is also dissected and judged to be complete or lacking in depth :

Hitchens essays never fail to delve deeper into the most cherished of authors, such as George Orwell.
"On animal Farm", details Orwells work being based on the product of his own experiences in Spain, fighting against the Fascists. For Orwell, this was a defining moment for him, seeing evidence that the Soviet Union was a new form of hell and not a Utopia. Orwell sought to expose the Soviet Myth in order to preserve the idea and procure a revival of a socialist movement.
"Animal Farm" is shown to analyse the Marx theory from the point of view of the animal (i.e "Proletarian" who were exploited by the rich (Bougessoia) who strive for a world without masters (farmers).
Orwell utilized "Animal symbolism" with the 1917 Russian Revolution, having social forces and historical people represented by different animals with events on the farmyard corresponding meticuosly to the actual events.
It was also very shocking to learn that not only did "Animal Farm" have difficulty in getting published, but when it was finally distributed and found by the American Military authorities in Europe, all copies were turned over to the Red Army to be burned
( i.e Orwells alliance between the farmers and the Pigs ). . .
Included is Hitchens own prediction of a renaissance of Animal farm in countries where Animal farm has been outlawed ( Noth Korea, China, Iran and the Islamic world) will be eventually and will strike a very familiar tone of allegory.


"Amusements, Annoyances, and Disappointments", is relatively short section containing only 8 essays.
However, these are some of Hitch's most famous and controversial personal remarks, including the questionably infamous
"Why Women Aren't Funny".

Reading this essay for the first time, I wince in retrospect about the small controversy that arose, criticizing Hitchens of either being unfair and/or derogative towards women. It should be put into question whether half the complaints were from people who had actually read the article or read it in its entirety. Hitchens does note a concession to his thesis - mentioning Lucile Ball and Sandra Bernhard. Hitchens even states that men laugh because of the fact that "Humor is a sign of intelligence and women having been educated, in that men can find a woman who is too-intelligent, thus can be seen as a sort of threat.

Hitchens brings up other issue's of sex, such as the history of the "blow job" and its gradual emergence as one of the preferred and accessible sex acts in America "As American as Apple pie", then taking a twist on the same subject to the embarrassing phenomenon of men performing felatio in airport bathrooms ( cough, former Republican Senator Larry Craig , cough, cough ) and the ironic behavior that is adopted for the majority of heterosexuals who partake in this phenomenon ( nearly half being heterosexual and married) , compensating for their conduct by adopting extreme conservative postures in the public sphere "So Many Mens rooms , So Little Time".

It is within this section that Hitchens is able to champion Human rights and to further the possibility of Equal rights being unfettered by religious dictates "or as much as possible".

In "The New Commandments", Hitchens delivers a wonderful Prose that examines and criticizes the Ten Commandments and whether thay are reasonable codes of conduct to be followed. It has been long overdue that someone was honest with who these laws were most likely pertained to, reminding us of the actual historical context or setting in which this code was enforced. Hitchens then revises a rendition of the Ten commandments that is morally salient and applicable in our Modern age.

"In Your Face" Hitchens offers his perspective of the French legislation banning the wearing on the Burka.
Hitchens defends the rights of women and of the legislation in spite of the political correctness that gives a "free-ride" to multiculturalism and any action that adheres to the banner under false pretenses. Hitchens employs numerous examples on how the burka is itself a ban on the right of women to disagree with male or clerical authority and a ban on the right of all citizens to look one another in the eye. Hitchens argues in turn that this legislation is really protecting the right of women to choose their own dress.


"Offshore Accounts" is probably the most notable section of the book, primarily dealing with modern political conflicts and utilizing the benefit of Hitchen's seasoned journalistic career in the hot spots as Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea.
I learned more about the middle east from reading these essays than I have absorbed from other media outlets :

In "Afghanistan's Dangerous Bet", Hitchens describes Afghanistan as "A culture posed" on the razors edge, by being in a very vulnerable state.
Hitchens tells of his visits in Afghanistan and his witnessing of Democracy attempted with the Afghani people risking acid in the face, mines on the road , bombs in the schools AND mosques , where the voters gather to name a few forms if discouragement.
Due to the complex history and cultural dynamics of feuding warlords and their past battles and political alliances, Hitchens isn't without doubt that such feats can be negated by the weight of centuries. To relate the matter more concisely, Hithens uses a quote from William faulkner ( talking of the deep south);
"The past is never dead" Hitchens capitalizes on this quote by adding that "Here, its not even past".

Another important argument in this essay was Hitchens condemnation of the war on drugs. Military specialists and Generals were even reported to assert that that this policy is a waste of their time or at best, a distraction from going after al-queda, as the farmers thinking that it is an assault on their only viable crop. Where there are whole areas of country recovered from Taliban control, where the "hearts and minds" battle is being lost every hour of every day , "with dumb attempts to root out the only thing that grows and sells".
What I found staggering about this is that the U.S Government actually grows opium in Turkey for our domestic painkiller market:
Hitchens is quick to inquire, "why not give Afghans a slice of the business"?

"Torture" Always much more than just an "armchair combatant" Hitchens once again goes out into the field to encounter water-boarding, where he had Veterans of the U.S armed forces to subject him to the treatment, so that he may employ his direct experience when deciding if water-boarding was torture or not. It is only after his experience is Hitchens confident in correcting the official lie about this treatment, that it stimulates the feeling of drowning - clarifying that in actuality one has the feeling of drowning, because one IS in the process of being drowned while being "watered" while laying on a declined board.

" Irans Waiting Game" Is an important essay highlighting the large and increasing dissonance between the people of Iran and its theocratic government. Once again, Hitchens is able to once again utilize his pertinent expression in the attitude of the Iranian people act "as if" they were living like people were in the West, with consumption of alcohol, rock music, illegal satelite t.v or with women fashioning the hajib, so liberally that it becomes a fashion wear, barely covering their hair.
Iranians acting "as if" people were more similar than what their governments would want us to know . . .

" From Abbottabad to Worse " is a powerful piece of Prose on the "third-world" client regimes and their toxic relationship with the Unites States, where time and time again these regimes who collect money from America end up being exposed as "false friends" acting with an arrogance ( such as Israel) and back-stabbing cowardice ( Pakistan ) putting American interests in jeopardy while the stakes are always rising.
Always apt in giving real-life examples in the time in which he writes, Hitchens demonstrates how such toxic relationships in turn are a great danger to our own sovereignty and the sovereignty of other democratic nations ( such as India and Afghanistan ).
To read example after example of how American sponsored regimes were responsible for attrocities after attrocities against its own people, makes one shudder while shaking their head in disbelief at the folly.

It doesn't take Hitchens to explain why he calls North Koreans "A Nation of Racist Dwarves " in another exposing essay.
When breaking down the type of racist nationalism elements of North Korean totalitarianism, Hitchens makes use of B.B Meyers work,"The cleanest race: How north Koreans see themselves and why it matters" , further dissecting and exposing Kim Jong ils modified system as a phenomenon of the very extreme and pathological right.
Being based on totalitarian "military first" mobilization, this system is maintained by slave labor and instills the ideology of the most unapologetic racism and xenophobia.
It was also shocking to learn how North Korean authorities never acknowledging the amount of aid that the U.S has given in food, but instead telling their captive subjects that the bags of grain stenciled with stars and stripes are tribute paid by a frightened america to the 'Dear Leader".



"Legacies of Totalitarianism" the next important section, discusses relevant conflicts - focusing especially on the first half of the last century.
The essays here are mostly discusses specific writers and intellectuals who had lived under totalitarian or fascist regimes and their legacies :

"The Persian Version" was a fascinating essay, where Hitchens focuses on the verbal and literary means by which it could thwart tyranny of the government by being subversively reactionary.
It doesn't take long to see how the Shah goes at length in rejecting almost every aspect of modernity except nuclearism (hermetic/demestic /despotism) eventually going too far by claiming to legislate for every aspet and claim the right to scrutinize everything including thought.
Hitchens gives much credence to the Iranian-Persian writers who succeed in circumventing the orthodox shia mullahs as long as the outward show of conformity is present.
This cultural sensibility is reported to raise the sense of pride to a permanent state of superiority over the person that is being deceived to where people feel as if they are leading a double life. Hitchens is able to trace a lot of this sort of reactionism to such literary types of Omar Khayam (10th century ) and his poetic anti-clerical satires.
Included in the writers employment of satire are women who utilize this "etiquette of defiance" for the struggle for femininity and feminism. This type of subversive civic protest of women has also been effective by greatly ammending the strict dress code and modifying it, constantly testing the limits and finding cracks in the system.

In the important essay " Imagining Hitler ", it was chilling to see Hitchens cast the narrative on Hitler, disecting the main motives behind the psychopathic demagogue. I could feel the hairs stick out from the back of my neck with Hitchens informing us, that just like the moth found in the corpse of a murder victim in the book/movie "The Silence of the Lambs;
"Somebody grew this guy, fed him honey and nightshade, kept him warm: somebody loved him", referring to Hitlers fanatical patrons extreme nationalist and conservative officers of the German army who had hired Hitler as a spy, gave him walking around money and noticed his talent for demaoguery. Hitler was even "nurtured" in the way of being accommodated by the British Prime Minister, Chamberlain who favored Hitler to expand his Reich into Czechoslovakia and Austria and even encouraging Hitler to battle the east Bolsheveik problem in the east - always considering the lesser evil until it is too late.

When moving onto a related essay "A War Worth Fighting", one already knows why Hitchens blasts the idea that "it is not worth fighting totalitarianism", to paraphrase Hitchens blasting of Pat Buchanan's crude historical revisionism.
Hitchens is able to cite all of the important factors that led up to both world wars that Pat Buchanan clumsily omits, leaving his timelines as spurios and sinister as being carefully selected in order to contort facts and revise political angles.
Always fair with his criticisms, Hitchens still scoffs at Buchanan for even going so far in assuming that the U.S should have allied itself with Hitler and supported his move into Russia until the Soviet union was destroyed, because "Hitler was a rational actor with intelligible and negotiable demands albeit with his demented ambitions cited in Mein Kaumpf"(sic).


"Words' Worth" the last section, exhibits Hitchens' essays on language, phrases, terms and culture. The earlier sections focused on Hitch as a political essayist, but this emphasizes Hitchens as a logophilic writer and charming raconteur.
More than the other sections, it allows Hitch to be more personal and candid, where his inimitable writing style and witty humor takes center stage.
The lot of the essays that I found the prose strongest is where Hitchens stands up for the people who refuse to conform or accommodate to tyranny:

In " Stand Up for Denmark " Hitchens stands up for the freedom of speech and expression of the press, being the only one who publicly defended the Danish cartoonists' right to publish satyrical cartoons of Mohammed.

" Fundamentalist " features Hitchens defending Ayaan Hirsi Ali from critics who called her a "fundamentalist" when she had stated in her autobiography that when she left the world of faith, of (female) genital cutting and forced marriages for the world of reason and sexual emancipation, she knew that one of the two worlds were simply better than the other. For Hitchens, the most notable thing about all theocracies is their sexual repression and their directly related determination to exert absolute control over women. Hitchens further scathes at the example of Newsweek magazine for referring to Ali as a "bombthrower", "as if to incite the notion that there is no difference between agressor and victim and they end up saying that its the "victim of violence who is really 'inciting' it".

In Closing...

Turning the last page and reflecting on the large body of essays, I found Christopher Hitchens to be a lover of Freedom, a foe of hypocrisy and a first class literary critic. His English prose is always readable, frequently funny, nimble and concise and his range being extraordinary, both in breadth and altitude. Hitchens had a consistent sharp focus on what others were saying, gave credit where is due, and skewered statements that were false, naive, hypocritical, self-serving, cowardly, bullying, or merely poorly reasoned.
I still find Hitchens arguably one of the most stimulating thinkers and entertaining we had, especially when he prodded and provoked, a master of the polemic.