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The Monarchy: A Critique of Britain's Favourite Fetish
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Christopher HitchensNumber Of Downloads:
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English
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40
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Book Description
'Why, when the subject of royalty or monarchy is mentioned, do the British bid adieu to every vestige of proportion, modesty, humour and restraint? '
This is not a call for the monarchy's abolition by fiat; illusions cannot be abolished. This is an invitation to think.
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.
Christopher Hitchens
He is a British-American author, columnist, essayist, orator, literary and religious critic, social critic and journalist. Hitchens was the author, co-author, editor or co-editor of more than 30 books, including five collections of political, cultural, and literary essays. His polemical rhetoric made him a central topic of public discourse, resulting in him as an intellectual and controversial figure. Contributed to New Statesman, The Nation, The Weekly Standard, The Atlantic, London Review of Books, The Times Literary Supplement, Slate, Free Inquiry, and Vanity Fair. Describing himself as a democratic socialist, Marxist and anti-totalitarian, he broke with the political left after describing it as the "lukewarm reaction" of the Western left to the debate over The Satanic Verses, followed by the left's embrace of Bill Clinton and the anti-NATO war movement in Bosnia and Herzegovina in the 1990s.
The last century. His support for the war on Iraq further separated him. His writings included criticism of public figures such as Bill Clinton, Henry Kissinger, Mother Teresa and Diana, Princess of Wales. He was the older brother of conservative journalist and author Peter Hitchens. He also called for the separation of church and state. As a critic of divinity, he regards notions of a deity or a higher power as universalistic beliefs that restrict individual freedom. He advocated freedom of expression and scientific discovery, and that it trumps religion as a moral code of conduct for human civilization. His famous statement, "What can be affirmed without evidence can be denied without evidence" became known as the Hitchens Code.
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