Arguably

font-face font-family Cambria p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal margin 0in 0in 0.0001pt font-size 12pt font-family Times New Roman div.Section1 page Section1 All first-rate criticism first defines what we are confronting, the late, great jazz critic Whitney Balliett once wrote. By that measure, the essays of Christopher Hitchens are in the first tier. For nearly four decades, Hitchens has been telling us, in pitch-perfect prose, what we confront when we grapple with first principles-the principles of reason and tolerance and skepticism that define and inform the foundations of our civilization-principles that, to endure, must be defended anew by every generation. A short list of the greatest living conversationalists in English, said The Economist, would probably have to include Christopher Hitchens, Sir Patrick Leigh-Fermor, and Sir Tom Stoppard.