A postal code (known in various countries as a post code, postcode, or ZIP code) is a series of letters and/or digits appended to a postal address for the purpose of sorting mail. Once postal codes were introduced, other applications became possible.

In February 2005, 117 of the 190 member countries of the Universal Postal Union had postal code systems. Countries that do not have national systems include Ireland and Panama. Although Hong Kong and Macau are now Special Administrative Regions of China, each maintains its own long-established postal system, which does not utilize postal codes for domestic mail, and no postal codes are assigned to Hong Kong and Macau. Mail between Hong Kong, Macau and mainland China is treated as international.

Although postal codes are usually assigned to geographical areas, special codes are sometimes assigned to individual addresses or to institutions that receive large volumes of mail, such as government agencies and large commercial companies. One example is the French CEDEX system.

Terms

There are a number of colloquial terms for ''postal code''.

; ''postal code'': The general term is used directly in Canada. ; ''postcode'': This portmanteau is popular in many English-speaking countries. ; ''ZIP code'': The standard term in the United States and the Philippines; ''ZIP'' is an acronym for ''Zone Improvement Plan''. ; ''PIN code'' / ''pincode'': The standard term in India; ''PIN'' is an acronym for ''Postal Index Number''.

History

Postal codes were first introduced in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in December 1932, but the system was abandoned in 1939. The next country to introduce postal codes was Germany in 1941, followed by Argentina in 1958, the United Kingdom in 1959, the United States in 1963 and Switzerland in 1964.

Presentation

Character sets

The characters used in postal codes are

The arabic numerals "0" to "9"

Letters of the Basic Latin alphabet,

space " ",

hyphen "-"

Reserved characters

Postal codes in the Netherlands originally did not use the letters 'F', 'I', 'O', 'Q', 'U' and 'Y' for technical reasons. But as almost all existing combinations are now used, these letters were allowed for new locations starting 2005. The letter combinations SS, SD and SA are not used for historical reasons.

Postal codes in Canada do not include the letters D, F, I, O, Q, or U, as the OCR equipment used in automated sorting could easily confuse them with other letters and digits. The letters W and Z are used, but are not currently used as the first letter.

Alphanumeric postal codes

Most of the postal code systems are numeric, only a few are alphanumeric (i.e. use both letters and digits). Alphanumeric systems can, given the same number of digits, encode many more locations. They are often more precise, as is the case in the United Kingdom or in the Netherlands, where a postal code corresponds to a street or even a building, meaning the post code and the number of the home/business is all that is needed for accurate delivery. However, there is no ''a priori'' reason why numeric postal codes cannot be equally precise, as illustrated by 9- and 11-digit codes in the United States. The independent nations using alphanumeric postal code systems are:

Argentina (see table)

Brunei (see table)

Canada (see table)

Jamaica (see postal codes in Jamaica)(suspended in 2007 )

Malta (see table)

Netherlands (see table)

United Kingdom (see table)

Venezuela (look up at http://www.ipostel.gob.ve/nlinea/codigo_postal.php).

Country code prefixes

Usage of ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 codes was recommended to be used starting in 1994, but they have not become widely used. The European Committee for Standardization recommends use of ISO Alpha-2 codes for international postcodes and a UPU guide on international addressing states that "administrations may recommend" the use of ISO Alpha-2 codes.

Andorra, Ecuador, Latvia, Moldova, Slovenia use the ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 as prefix in their postal codes.

In some countries (such as those of continental Europe, where a postcode format of four or five numeric digits is commonly used) the numeric postal code is sometimes prefixed with a country code to avoid confusion when sending international mail to or from that country. Recommendations by official bodies responsible for postal communications are confusing regarding this practice. For many years, licence plate codes — for instance "D-" for Germany or "F-" for France — were used, although this was not accepted by the Universal Postal Union (UPU).

Placement of the code

Postal services have their own formats and placement rules for postal codes. In most English-speaking countries, the postal code forms the last item of the address, following the city or town name, whereas in most continental European countries it precedes the name of the city or town.

When it follows the city it may be on the same line or on a new line.

In Japan, China, Korea and the Russian Federation, it is written more to the beginning of an address.

Geographic coverage

Postal codes are usually assigned to geographical areas. Sometimes codes are assigned to individual addresses or to institutions that receive large volumes of mail, e.g. government agencies or large commercial companies. One example is the French Cedex system.

Postal zone numbers

Before postal codes as described here were used, large cities were often divided into ''postal zones'' or ''postal districts'', usually numbered from 1 upwards within each city. The newer postal code systems often incorporate the old zone numbers, as with London postal district numbers, for example. Ireland still uses postal district numbers in Dublin. In New Zealand, Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch were divided into postal zones, but these fell into disuse, and have now become redundant as a result of a new postcode system being introduced.

Codes defined along administrative borders

Some postal code system, like the one of Ecuador and Costa Rica show an exact agreement with the hierarchy of the administrative country subdivisions.

Format of 6 digit numeric (8 digit alphanumeric) postal codes in Ecuador, introduced in December 2007: ECAABBCC : EC - ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 country code : AA - one of the 24 provinces of Ecuador (24 of 100 possible codes used = 24%) : BB - one of the 226 cantons of Ecuador (for AABB 226 of 10000 codes used , i.e. 2.26%. Three cantons are not in any province) : CC - one of the parishes of Ecuador.

Format of 5 digit numeric Postal codes in Costa Rica, introduced in 2007: ABBCC : A - one of the 7 provinces of Costa Rica (7 of 10 used, i.e. 70%) : BB - one of the 81 cantons of Costa Rica (81 of 1000 used, i.e. 8.1%) : CC - one of the districts of Costa Rica. In Costa Rica these codes are also used by the National Institute for Statistics and Census (INSEC).

The first two digits of the postal codes in Turkey correspond to the provinces and each province has assigned only one number. They are the same for them as in ISO 3166-2:TR.

The first two digits of the postal codes in Vietnam indicate a province. Some provinces have one, other have several two digit numbers assigned. The numbers differ from the number used in ISO 3166-2:VN.

Codes defined close to administrative borders

In France the numeric code for the departments is used in the first digits of the postal code, except for the two departments in Corsica that have codes 2A and 2B and use 20 as postal code. Furthermore the codes are only the codes for the department in charge of delivery of the post, so it can be that a location in one department has a postal code starting with the number of a neighbouring department.

Codes defined indirectly to administrative borders

The first digit of the postal codes in the United States defines an area including several states. From the first three digits (with some exceptions), one can deduce the state.

Codes defined independently from administrative borders

The first two digits of the postal codes in Germany define areas independent from administrative regions. The coding space of the first digit is fully used (0-9); that of the first two combined is utilized to 89%, i.e., there are 89 postal zones defined. Zone 11 is non-geographic.

The UK post designed the postal codes in the United Kingdom mostly for efficient distribution. Nevertheless, with time, people associated codes with certain areas, leading certain people wanting or not wanting to have a certain code. See also postcode lottery.

Precision

Netherlands

Postal codes in the Netherlands are alphanumeric, consisting of four digits followed by a space and two letters (NNNN AA). Adding the house number to the postcode will identify the address, making the street name and town name redundant. For example: 2597 GV 75 will direct a postal delivery to the International School of The Hague.

USA

Other countries allow equally precise coding. For example, in the United States, the delivery point is typically derived from the last two digits of the house number and thus (at least theoretically) allows an unambiguous identification of every address in the country.

UK

For domestic properties the postcode refers to up to 100 properties in contiguous proximity (e.g. a short section of a populous road, or a series of less populous neighbouring roads). The postcode plus the number or name of a property is not always unique, particularly in rural areas. For example GL20 8NX/1 might refer to either 1 Frampton Cottages or 1 Frampton Farm Cottages, roughly half a kilometre apart. The postcode plus the ''first line of the address'', however, is always unique (except where sub-properties occurs).

Structure is alphanumeric with the following seven valid permutations, as defined by BS 7666:

A9 9AA A9A 9AA A99 9AA A99A 9AA AA9 9AA AA9A 9AA AA99 9AA

There are always two halves: the separation between outward and inward postcodes is indicated by one space.

The outward postcode covers a unique area and has two parts which may in total be two three or four characters in length. A postcode area of one or two letters, followed by one or two numbers, followed in some parts of London by a letter.

The outward postcode and the leading numeric of the inward postcode in combination forms a postal sector, and this usually corresponds to a couple of thousand properties.

Larger businesses and isolated properties such as farms may have a unique postcode. Extremely large organisations such as larger government offices or bank headquarters may have multiple postcodes for different departments.

There are about 100 postcode areas ranging widely in size from BT which covers the whole of Northern Ireland to ZE for Shetland. Postcode areas may also cross national boundaries, such as SY which covers a large, predominantly rural area from Shrewsbury and Ludlow in Shropshire, England, through the eastern Welsh town of Welshpool, Powys in Wales to the seaside town of Aberystwyth, Ceredigion on Wales' west coast.

States and overseas territories sharing a postal code system

Guernsey, Jersey and the Isle of Man are part of the UK postcode system. They use the scheme AAN NAA, in which the first two letters are a unique code (GY, JE and IM respectively).

Seven British overseas territories use nine postal codes: three for Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha, and one apiece for the others. Note that the former has two ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 country codes, and the British Antarctic Territory has none, so the number of ISO codes is seven.

Ascension Island: ASCN 1ZZ, ISO code: AC

British Antarctic Territory: BIQQ 1ZZ

British Indian Ocean Territory: BBND 1ZZ, ISO code: IO

Falkland Islands: FIQQ 1ZZ, ISO code: FK

Pitcairn Islands: PCRN 1ZZ, ISO code: PN

Saint Helena STHL 1ZZ, ISO code: SH

South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands: SIQQ 1ZZ, ISO code: GS

Tristan da Cunha: TDCU 1ZZ, ISO code: included under SH

Turks and Caicos Islands: TKCA 1ZZ, ISO code: TC

Two other British areas have their own systems, and use the ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 prefix:

Cayman Islands: KYN-NNNN*

British Virgin Islands: VGNNNN.

French overseas territories use the five-digit French postal code system, each code starting with the three letter department identifier. Monaco also uses the French system.

Italy, San Marino and Vatican City use one system. Liechtenstein and Switzerland use one system. Slovakia and the Czech Republic base their systems on the codes of Czechoslovakia, their ranges not overlapping.

Non-geographic codes

In Finland the special postal code 99999 is for Korvatunturi, the place where Santa Claus (Joulupukki in Finnish) is said to live.

In Greenland the postal code 2412 is for Julemanden (Santa Claus)

In Canada the amount of mail sent to Santa Claus increased every Christmas, up to the point that Canada Post decided to start an official Santa Claus letter-response program in 1983. Approximately one million letters come in to Santa Claus each Christmas, including from outside of Canada, and all of them are answered in the same languages in which they are written. Canada Post introduced a special address for mail to Santa Claus, complete with its own postal code:

:SANTA CLAUS :NORTH POLE  H0H 0H0

In the United Kingdom, the non-conforming postal code GIR 0AA was used for the National Girobank until its closure in 2003.

Formats

A = letter

N = number

CC = ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 country code

!Country	!Introduced	ISO 3166-1 alpha-2>ISO	!Format	!Note
Afghanistan			- no codes -
			NNNNN	With Finland, first two numbers are 22.
			NNNN
			NNNNN	First two as in ISO 3166-2:DZ
	2004		CCNNN
			- no codes -
	1974, modified 1999		1974-1998 NNNN; From 1999 ANNNNAAA	Codigo Postal Argentino (CPA), where A is the province code as in ISO 3166-2:AR
	1963-07-01		NNNNN	U.S. ZIP codes
	2006-04-01		NNNN
Ascension island			AAAANAA one code: ASCN 1ZZ	UK territory, but not UK postcode
	1967		NNNN
	1966		NNNN
			CCNNNN
			NNNN
		BB	CCNNNNN
		BY	NNNNNN
		BE	NNNN	First number indicates the province. (not completely correct)
		BZ	- no codes -
		BJ	- no codes -
			NNNNN
	1972	BR	NNNNN	Código de Endereçamento Postal (CEP)
	1992	BR	NNNNNNNN (NNNNN-NNN)
British Indian Ocean Territory			AAAANAA one code: BIQQ 1ZZ	UK territory, but not UK postcode
		VG	CCNNNN
			AANNNN
	1975		NNNN
			NNNNN
	1971–1975		ANA NAN	The system was gradually introduced starting in April 1971 in Ottawa
		CV	NNNN	The first digit indicates the island.
			NNNNNNN (NNN-NNNN)
			NNNNNN
			NNNNNN
	2007-03	CR	NNNNN	First codes the provinces, next two the canton, last two the district.
		HR	NNNNN
	1994-10-01	CY	NNNN
	1973	CZ	NNNNN (NNN NN)	with Slovak Republic, Poštovní směrovací číslo (PSČ) - postal routing number
	1967-09-20	DK	NNNN
	2007-12	EC	CCNNNNNN
		EG	NNNNN
		EE	NNNNN
Falkland Islands			AAAANAA one code: FIQQ 1ZZ	UK territory, but not UK postcode
	1971	FI	NNNNN
	1972	FR	NNNNN	First mostly as in ISO 3166-2:FR.
			NNNN
	1941-07-25	--	NN	Postleitzahl (PLZ)
	1962	DE	NNNN	Postleitzahl (PLZ)
	1993	DE	NNNNN	Postleitzahl (PLZ)
	1983	GR	NNNNN
	1963-07-01		NNNNN	U.S. ZIP codes
	1993		AAN NAA	UK-format postcode (first two letters are always GY not GG)
Hong Kong			- no codes -
		HU	NNNN
		IS	NNN
	1972-08-15	IN	NNNNNN,	NNN NNN	Postal Index Number (PIN)
		ID	NNNNN	Kode Pos
			NNNNN-NNNNN	کد پستی
	2004		NNNNN
			- no codes -	Alphanumeric system planned, however no known rollout date
	1993		CCN NAA, CCNN NAA	UK-format postcode
		IL	NNNNN
	1967		NNNNN	Codice di Avviamento Postale (CAP)
	1968	JP	NNNNNNN (NNN-NNNN)
	1994		CCN NAA	UK-format postcode
			NNNNNN	Reference:
		LV	CC-NNNN
	1964	LI	NNNN	With Switzerland, ordered from west to east
		LT	NNNNN	References: http://www.post.lt/en/?id=421 http://www.post.lt/en/?id=271
		LU	NNNN	References: http://www.upu.int/post_code/en/countries/LUX.pdf
Macau		MO	- no codes -
		MY	NNNNN
		MT	AAANNNN (AAA NNNN)	Kodiċi Postali
	1963-07-01		NNNNN	U.S. ZIP codes
		MX	NNNNN
	1963-07-01		NNNNN	U.S. ZIP codes
		MD	CCNNNN (CC-NNNN)
	1972	MC	980NN
		ME	NNNNN
	1997-01-01	MA	NNNNN
	1977	NL	NNNN AA
	2008-06	NZ	NNNN	Postcode
		NI	NNNNNN
	1963-07-01		NNNNN	U.S. ZIP codes
	1968-03-18	NO	NNNN	From south to north
	1963-07-01		NNNNN	U.S. ZIP codes
			NNNNNN
		PK	NNNNNN
		PY	NNNN
		PE	Alphanumeric	New National Postal Code system to be implemented in February 2011
		PH	NNNN
Pitcairn Islands			AAAANAA one code: PCRN 1ZZ	UK territory, but not UK postcode
	1973	PL	NNNNN (NN-NNN)
	1976		NNNN
	1994	PT	NNNN-NNN (NNNN NNN)
	1963-07-01		NNNNN	U.S. ZIP codes
	2003-05-01	RO	NNNNNN
	1971		NNNNNN
			NNNNN	With Italy, uses a five-digit numeric CAP of Emilia Romagna
	2005-01-01		NNNNN	Poshtanski adresni kod (PAK)
	1950		NN
	1979		NNNN
	1995		NNNNNN
	1973	SK	NNNNN (NNN NN)	with Czech Republic from west to east, Poštové smerovacie číslo (PSČ) - postal routing number
			CCNNNN (CC-NNNN)
	1975		NNNN
South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands			AAAANAA one code: SIQQ 1ZZ	UK territory, but not UK postcode
			NNNNNN (NNN-NNN)
	1976		NNNNN	First two indicate the province, range 01-52
			NNNNN	Reference: http://mohanjith.net/ZIPLook/
	1968-05-12		NNNNN (NNN NN)
	1964		NNNN	With Liechtenstein, ordered from west to east
			NNNNN	includes some territories administrated by Japan
	1982-02-25	TH	NNNNN	The first two specify the province, numbers as in ISO 3166-2:TH, the third and fourth digits specify a district (amphoe)
Tunisia			NNNN
Turks and Caicos Islands			AAAANAA one code: TKCA 1ZZ	UK territory, but not UK postcode
			NNNNN	The first two specify the province as in ISO 3166-2:TR
			NNNNN
	1959–1974		A(A)N(A/N)NAA (A[A]N[A/N] NAA)	Postcode, letters before the first number identify a town or district. AN NAA, ANN NAA, ANA NAA, AAN NAA, AANN NAA, AANA NAA. Complex as incorporates early non-systematic postal districts.
	1963-07-01		NNNNN (optionally NNNNN-NNNN or NNNNN-NNNNNN)	ZIP code
	1963-07-01		NNNNN	U.S. ZIP codes
			NNNNN	with Italy, uses a five-digit numeric CAP of Rome
			NNNNNN

Non-postal uses and economic aspects

While postal codes were introduced to expedite the delivery of mail, they are very useful tools for several other purposes, particularly in countries where codes are very fine-grained and identify just a few addresses. Among uses are: Finding the nearest branch of an organisation to a given address. A computer program uses the postal codes of the target address and the branches to list the closest branches in order of distance as the crow flies (or, if used in conjunction with streetmap software, road distance). This can be used by companies to inform potential customers where to go, by job centres to find jobs for job-seekers, to alert people of town planning applications in their area, and a great many other applications.

Fine-grained postal codes can be used with satellite navigation systems to navigate to an address by street number and postcode.

Geographical sales territories for representatives in the pharmaceutical industry are allocated based on a workload index that is based upon postcode.

Availability

The availability of postal code information has significant economic advantages. In some countries, the postal authorities charge for access to the code database. , the United Kingdom Government is consulting on whether to waive licensing fees for some geographical data sets (to be determined) related to UK postcodes.

See also

List of postal codes

:Category:Lists of postal codes

Mailing address format by country

References

External links

Universal Postal Union

*Addressing

*Postcodes

Reference on World Postcodes

countries postal codes Formats and list

Category:Postal system

als:Postleitzahl ar:رمز بريدي an:Codigo postal ast:Códigu postal az:Poçt indeksi bn:পোস্ট কোড be:Паштовы індэкс be-x-old:Паштовы індэкс bar:Postleitzoi bs:Poštanski broj br:Kod-post bg:Пощенски код ca:Codi postal cs:Poštovní směrovací číslo cy:Côd post da:Postnummer de:Postleitzahl el:Ταχυδρομικός κώδικας es:Código postal eo:Poŝtkodo ext:Coigu postal eu:Posta-kode fa:کد پستی fr:Code postal fy:Postkoade fur:CAP gl:Código postal ko:우편번호 hy:Փոստային ինդեքս hr:Poštanski broj id:Kodepos is:Póstnúmer it:Codice postale he:מיקוד (דואר) jv:Kodhe pos la:Numerus cursualis lv:Pasta indekss lb:Postcode lt:Pašto kodas lij:Codiçe postâ hu:Irányítószám mk:Поштенски број ms:Poskod nl:Postcode nds-nl:Postcode ja:郵便番号 no:Postnummer nn:Postnummer oc:Còde postal nds:Postleddtall pl:Kod pocztowy pt:Código postal ro:Cod poștal ru:Почтовый индекс sq:Kodi postar scn:CAP simple:Postal code sk:Poštové smerovacie číslo sl:Poštna številka v Sloveniji sr:Поштански код sh:Poštanski broj fi:Postinumero sv:Postnummer ta:அஞ்சல் குறியீடுகள் th:รหัสไปรษณีย์ tg:Нишонаи почта tr:Posta kodu uk:Поштовий індекс ur:رمزِ ڈاک vec:Codice postale vi:Mã bưu chính wa:Limero del posse vls:Postnummer wuu:邮政编码 zh:邮政编码

Coordinates	12°58′0″N77°34′0″N
name	Daniel Handler
pseudonym	Lemony Snicket
birth date	February 28, 1970
birth place	San Francisco, California, United States
occupation	Novelist, screenwriter, musician
nationality	American
period	1998-present
genre	Children's literature
notableworks	''A Series of Unfortunate Events'', ''The Basic Eight'', ''Watch Your Mouth'', ''Adverbs''
spouse	Lisa Brown
influences	C. S. Lewis, Vladimir Nabokov, Roald Dahl, Edward Gorey, Franz Kafka, Edgar Allan Poe, Zilpha Keatley Snyder, Dino Buzzati
signature	Daniel handler signature.svg
website	http://www.lemonysnicket.com }}

Daniel Handler (born February 28, 1970) is an American author, screenwriter and accordionist. He is best known for his work under the pen name Lemony Snicket.

Personal life

Handler was born in San Francisco, California, the son of Sandra Handler Day (née Walpole), an opera singer and retired City College of San Francisco Dean, and Lou Handler, an accountant. His father was a Jewish refugee from Germany, and his mother is distantly related to British writer Hugh Walpole. He has a younger sister, Rebecca Handler. He attended Commodore Sloat Elementary, Herbert Hoover Middle School and Lowell High School. Handler graduated from Wesleyan University in 1992. He is an alumnus of the San Francisco Boys Chorus.

Handler is married to Lisa Brown, a graphic artist whom he met in college. They have a son, Otto, born in 2003. They live in an old Victorian house in San Francisco.

Handler is politically active and helped form LitPAC. In the June 10, 2007 edition of ''The New York Times Magazine'', Handler reveals ambivalence toward his wealth, and the expectations it creates. He states he is often asked for money for charitable causes and often gives. In an interview conducted by the 667 Dark Avenue fan site, Daniel Handler gave his personal philosophy as "Never refuse a breath mint".

Although Handler has a partially Jewish background and considers C. S. Lewis to be an influence, he describes himself as a secular humanist. In addition, he says, "I'm not a believer in predetermined fates, being rewarded for one's efforts. I'm not a believer in karma. The reason why I try to be a good person is because I think it's the right thing to do. If I commit fewer bad acts there will be fewer bad acts, maybe other people will join in committing fewer bad acts, and in time there will be fewer and fewer of them".

Professional work

Books

Three of his novels have been published under his name. His first, ''The Basic Eight'', was rejected by many publishers for its subject matter and tone (a dark view of a teenage girl's life). Handler claims that the novel was rejected thirty-seven times before finally being published. The book's tone served as an impetus of sorts for the Lemony Snicket works, ''A Series of Unfortunate Events''.

''Watch Your Mouth'', his second novel, was actually completed before ''The Basic Eight'' was published. It follows a more operatic theme, complete with stage directions and various acts. Described by HarperCollins, the book's reprint publisher, as an "incest opera", it mixed Jewish mythology with modern sexuality. ''Watch Your Mouth'''s second half replaces the opera troupe with the form of a 12-step recovery, linguistically undergone by the protagonist.

His most recent effort under his own name is ''Adverbs'', a series of short stories that he says are "about love". It was published in April 2006.

Handler has stated that his next adult novel is about pirates - or, more specifically, a modern-age pirate who "wants to be an old-fashioned kind of pirate".

Lemony Snicket

thumb|Daniel Handler signing copies of his books at a promotion for ''A Series of Unfortunate Events''Handler began writing ''A Series of Unfortunate Events'' under the Snicket pseudonym in 1999. The books concern three orphaned children who experience progressively terrible events following the alleged death of their parents and burning of their home (done by a man named Count Olaf and his troupe of associates), and Snicket acts as the narrator and biographer of the fictional orphans. He has also narrated the audiobooks for three consecutive books in the series, before deciding to quit because he found it too difficult, handing back the narrating job to the original narrator, Tim Curry.

Handler has also appeared at author appearances as "Lemony Snicket's handler", as well as appearing as Snicket himself in various other books and media, including the commentary track for the film version of his books, ''Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events''. He also wrote an introduction to ''Lemony Snicket: The Unauthorized Autobiography'' under his own name.

The Lemony Snicket books have been international best-sellers, and the 13th and final installment of the series came out Friday, October 13, 2006. On the day the thirteenth book came out, Handler appeared on the ''Today'' show as Lemony Snicket's representative.

Handler has also written some short fiction and picture books under the Lemony Snicket pseudonym.

Music

Handler was in two bands following college, The Edith Head Trio and Tzamboni, but it wasn't until ''69 Love Songs'', a three-album set by The Magnetic Fields, that his music attracted attention. Handler played accordion on a number of tracks in ''69 Love Songs''. In the box set of the project, Handler provides a lengthy interview with Stephin Merritt about the project, as well as conversations about each song. Handler also appears in the 2009 documentary ''Strange Powers,'' by Kathy Fix and Gail O'Hara, about Merritt and his band, the Magnetic Fields.

He has gone on to play accordion in several other Merritt projects, including music by The Magnetic Fields, The 6ths and The Gothic Archies, the last of which provided songs for the audiobooks in the ''A Series of Unfortunate Events'' children's book series. On October 10, 2006, an album by the Gothic Archies was released with all thirteen songs from the thirteen audiobooks in ''A Series of Unfortunate Events'', along with two bonus songs.

In the audio commentary on the film adaptation ''Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events'', Handler plays a song about how depressing it is to have leeches in a film.

Daniel Handler wrote the lyrics to the song "Radio", performed by One Ring Zero, and the lyrics to "The Gibbons Girl" by Chris Ewen's The Hidden Variable.

Film

Handler has also had some success in film work. He produced the screenplay for ''Rick'', which was based on the Verdi opera ''Rigoletto'', as well as ''Kill the Poor'', which was based on the novel by Joel Rose.

Handler was involved in the screenwriting process for the film ''Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events'', but was ultimately removed from the project. He had completed eight separate drafts of the film before giving up following a change in those who were producing the film. Robert Gordon (screenwriter of ''Galaxy Quest'') was hired to replace Handler and eventually received credit for the film's screenplay, under Handler's request.

Handler did submit a commentary track for the DVD version of ''Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events'', alongside director Brad Silberling. In character as Lemony Snicket, he derides the Lemony Snicket in the film - played by Jude Law - as an impostor, as well as choosing to play accordion and sing about leeches rather than pay attention to the film. At numerous times during the track he shows great sympathy towards the Baudelaire children, and implies that he is being held captive by the director in order to do the commentary.

List of works

This is a partial list of works Handler has created or been involved with. For more information regarding his works as Lemony Snicket, see Lemony Snicket.

Books

''The Basic Eight'' St. Martin's Press/HarperCollins (1998)

''A Series of Unfortunate Events'' (as Lemony Snicket) HarperCollins (13 books from 1999 to 2006)

''Watch Your Mouth'' St. Martin's Press/HarperCollins (2000)

''Lemony Snicket: The Unauthorized Autobiography'' (as Lemony Snicket) (2002)

''How to Dress for Every Occasion, by the Pope'' (with illustrations by Sarah "Pinkie" Bennett, pseudonym for Lisa Brown) McSweeney's (2005)

''Adverbs'' St. Martin's Press/HarperCollins (2006)

''The Beatrice Letters'' (as Lemony Snicket) (2006)

''Horseradish: Bitter Truths You Can't Avoid'' (as Lemony Snicket) (2007)

''The Latke Who Couldn't Stop Screaming'' (McSweeney's) (as Lemony Snicket) (2007)

''The Lump of Coal'' (as Lemony Snicket) (2008)

''The Composer is Dead'' (as Lemony Snicket) (2009)

''13 Words'' (as Lemony Snicket) (with illustrations by Maira Kalman) HarperCollins (2010)

''Why We Broke Up'' (2011)

As editor or contributor:

''Nonsense Novels'' by Stephen Leacock (Introduction) New York Review of Books Classics (2004)

''Noisy Outlaws, Unfriendly Blobs and Some Other Things That Aren't as Scary, Maybe, Depending on How You Feel About Lost Lands, Stray Cellphones, Creatures from the Sky, Parents Who Disappear in Peru, a Man Named Lars Farf and One Other Story We Couldn't Quite Finish, So Maybe You Could Help Us Out.'' by McSweeney's (Introduction and Unfinished story)

''The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade'' by Herman Melville (Preface) Dalkey Archive Press (2007)

Film

''Rick'' (2003)

''Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events '' (2004)

''Kill the Poor'' (2006)

Music

''69 Love Songs'' - The Magnetic Fields

''Hyacinths and Thistles'' - The 6ths

''The Tragic Treasury: Songs from A Series of Unfortunate Events'' - The Gothic Archies

''Distortion'' - The Magnetic Fields

''Nevermind the Context'' - moth wranglers

''The Composer Is Dead'' - A collaboration with Nathaniel Stookey, premiered in San Francisco at Davies Symphony Hall on July 8, 2006

''Realism'' - The Magnetic Fields

"Barricade" - Stars

References

External links

The Official Lemony Snicket website

Article in the New York Times Magazine, June 10, 2007

The Onion AV Club interview with Daniel Handler.

Daniel Handler on creativity and the creative process, an interview with about-creativity.com June 14, 2007

Handler Interview on The Hour with George Stroumboulopoulos

Category:1970 births Category:American accordionists Category:American children's writers Category:American humanists Category:American novelists Category:American screenwriters Category:American short story writers Category:Audio book narrators Category:Living people Category:People from San Francisco, California Category:Wesleyan University alumni Category:Writers from California Category:Jewish American novelists Category:American horror writers Category:Postmodern writers Category:Pseudonymous writers

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Coordinates	12°58′0″N77°34′0″N
name	Christopher Hitchens
birth name	Christopher Eric Hitchens
birth date	April 13, 1949
birth place	Portsmouth, England
death date	December 15, 2011
death place	Houston, Texas, U.S.
occupation	Writer, journalist, public speaker
alma mater	Balliol College, Oxford
nationality	English American
religion	None
subject	Politics, religion, history, biography, literature
spouse
relatives	Peter Hitchens (brother)
influences	George Orwell, Leszek Kolakowski, Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson, George Eliot, Karl Marx, Leon Trotsky, Rosa Luxemburg, John Stuart Mill, Joseph Heller, Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Noam Chomsky, Gore Vidal, Edward Said, Salman Rushdie, Vladimir Nabokov, Richard Llewellyn, Aldous Huxley, PG Wodehouse, Evelyn Waugh, Richard Hofstadter, Paul Mark Scott, James Fenton, James Joyce, Albert Camus, Oscar Wilde, Conor Cruise O'Brien, Martin Amis, Kingsley Amis, Ian McEwan, Colm Tóibín, Bertrand Russell, Wilfred Owen, Israel Shahak, Isaiah Berlin, Émile Zola, W. H. Auden, Susan Sontag
influenced	Johann Hari, Martin Amis, Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins
website	}}

Christopher Eric Hitchens, nicknamed "Hitch", (13 April 1949 – 15 December 2011) was an English American author and journalist whose books, essays, and journalistic career spanned more than four decades. He was a columnist and literary critic for ''The Atlantic'', ''Free Inquiry'', ''The Nation'', ''Salon'', ''Slate'', ''Vanity Fair'', ''World Affairs'', and became a media fellow at the Hoover Institution in September 2008. He was a staple of talk shows and lecture circuits and in 2005 was voted the world's fifth top public intellectual in a ''Prospect''/''Foreign Policy'' poll.

Hitchens was known for his admiration of George Orwell, Thomas Paine and Thomas Jefferson and for his excoriating critiques of Mother Teresa, Bill and Hillary Clinton, Henry Kissinger and Britain's royal family, among others. His confrontational style of debate made him both a lauded and controversial figure. As a political observer, polemicist and self-defined radical, he rose to prominence as a fixture of the left-wing publications in his native Britain and in the United States. His departure from the established political left began in 1989 after what he called the "tepid reaction" of the Western left following Ayatollah Khomeini's issue of a ''fatwā'' calling for the murder of Salman Rushdie. The September 11 attacks strengthened his internationalist embrace of an interventionist foreign policy, and his vociferous criticism of what he called "fascism with an Islamic face". His numerous editorials in support of the Iraq War caused some to label him a neoconservative, although Hitchens insisted he was not "a conservative of any kind".

Identified as a champion of the "New Atheism" movement, Hitchens described himself as an antitheist and a believer in the philosophical values of the Enlightenment. Hitchens said that a person "could be an atheist and wish that belief in god were correct", but that "an antitheist, a term I'm trying to get into circulation, is someone who is relieved that there's no evidence for such an assertion." According to Hitchens, the concept of a god or a supreme being is a totalitarian belief that destroys individual freedom, and that free expression and scientific discovery should replace religion as a means of teaching ethics and defining human civilization. He wrote at length on atheism and the nature of religion in his 2007 book ''God Is Not Great''.

Though Hitchens retained his British citizenship, he became a United States citizen on the steps of the Jefferson Memorial on 13 April 2007, his 58th birthday. Asteroid 57901 Hitchens is named after him. His memoir, ''Hitch-22'', was published in June 2010. Touring for the book was cut short later in the same month so he could begin treatment for newly diagnosed esophageal cancer. On 15 December 2011, Hitchens died from pneumonia, a complication of his cancer, in the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas.

Life and career

Early life and education

His mother, Yvonne Jean (née Hickman), and father, Eric Ernest Hitchens (1909–1987), met in Scotland while both were serving in the Royal Navy during World War II. Yvonne was at the time a "Wren" (a member of the Women's Royal Naval Service), and Eric a "purse-lipped and silent" commander, whose ship HMS ''Jamaica'' helped sink Nazi Germany's battleship ''Scharnhorst'' in the Battle of the North Cape. His father's naval career required the family to move a number of times from base to base throughout Britain and its dependencies, including in Malta, where Christopher's brother Peter was born in Sliema in 1951.

Hitchens's mother having argued that "if there is going to be an upper class in this country, then Christopher is going to be in it,", in the late fifties and early sixties he was educated at Mount House School in Tavistock in Devon, then at the independent Leys School in Cambridge, and then at Balliol College in Oxford, where he was tutored by Steven Lukes and read philosophy, politics, and economics achieving, however, only third-class honours. Hitchens was "bowled over" in his adolescence by Richard Llewellyn's ''How Green Was My Valley'', Arthur Koestler's ''Darkness at Noon,'' Fyodor Dostoyevsky's ''Crime and Punishment'', R. H. Tawney's critique on ''Religion and the Rise of Capitalism,'' and the works of George Orwell. In 1968, he took part in the TV quiz show ''University Challenge''.

Hitchens has written of his homosexual experiences when in boarding school in his memoir, ''Hitch-22''. These experiences continued in his college years, when he allegedly had relationships with two men who eventually became a part of the Thatcher government.

In the 1960s Hitchens joined the political left, drawn by his anger over the Vietnam War, nuclear weapons, racism, and "oligarchy", including that of "the unaccountable corporation". He would express affinity with the politically charged countercultural and protest movements of the 1960s and 1970s. However, he deplored the rife recreational drug use of the time, which he describes as hedonistic.

He joined the Labour Party in 1965, but along with the majority of the Labour students' organization was expelled in 1967, because of what Hitchens called "Prime Minister Harold Wilson's contemptible support for the war in Vietnam". Under the influence of Peter Sedgwick, who translated the writings of Russian revolutionary and Soviet dissident Victor Serge, Hitchens forged an ideological interest in Trotskyist and anti-Stalinist socialism. Shortly after he joined "a small but growing post-Trotskyist Luxemburgist sect". Throughout his student days he was on many occasions arrested and assaulted in the various political protests and activities in which he participated.

Journalistic career (1970–1981)

Hitchens began working as a correspondent for the magazine ''International Socialism'', published by the International Socialists, the forerunners of today's British Socialist Workers Party. This group was broadly Trotskyist, but differed from more orthodox Trotskyist groups in its refusal to defend communist states as "workers' states". Their slogan was "Neither Washington nor Moscow but International Socialism".

Hitchens left Oxford with a third class degree. His first job was with the London ''Times Higher Education Supplement'', where he served as social science editor. Hitchens admitted that he hated the position, and was later fired; he recalled, "I sometimes think if I'd been any good at that job, I might still be doing it." In the 1970s, he went on to work for the ''New Statesman'', where he became friends with the authors Martin Amis and Ian McEwan, among others. At the ''New Statesman'' he acquired a reputation as a fierce left-winger, aggressively attacking targets such as Henry Kissinger, the Vietnam War, and the Roman Catholic Church.

In November 1973, Hitchens' mother committed suicide in Athens in a suicide pact with her lover, a former clergyman named Timothy Bryan. They overdosed on sleeping pills in adjoining hotel rooms, and Bryan slashed his wrists in the bathtub. Hitchens flew alone to Athens to recover his mother's body. Hitchens said he thought his mother was pressured into suicide by fear that her husband would learn of her infidelity, as their marriage had been strained and unhappy. Both her children were then independent adults. While in Greece, Hitchens reported on the constitutional crisis of the military junta. It became his first leading article for the ''New Statesman''.

American career (1981–2011)

After moving to the United States in 1981, Hitchens wrote for ''The Nation'', where he penned vociferous critiques of Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush and American foreign policy in South and Central America. He became a contributing editor of ''Vanity Fair'' in 1992, writing ten columns a year. He left ''The Nation'' in 2002 after profoundly disagreeing with other contributors over the Iraq War. There is speculation that Hitchens was the inspiration for Tom Wolfe's character Peter Fallow in the 1987 novel ''The Bonfire of the Vanities'', but others — including Hitchens (or he indicated as such while alive) — believe it to be ''Spy Magazine''s "Ironman Nightlife Decathlete" Anthony Haden-Guest. In 1987, his father died from cancer of the esophagus.

Hitchens spent part of his early career in journalism as a foreign correspondent in Cyprus. Through his work there he met his first wife Eleni Meleagrou, a Greek Cypriot, with whom he had two children, Alexander and Sophia. His son, Alexander Meleagrou-Hitchens, born in 1984, has worked as a researcher for London think tanks the Policy Exchange and the Centre for Social Cohesion. Hitchens continued writing essay-style correspondence pieces from a variety of locales, including Chad, Uganda and the Darfur region of Sudan. His work took him to over 60 countries. In 1991 he received a Lannan Literary Award for Nonfiction.

Before Hitchens' political shift, the American author and polemicist Gore Vidal was apt to speak of Hitchens as his "Dauphin" or "heir". In 2010, Hitchens attacked Vidal in a ''Vanity Fair'' piece headlined "Vidal Loco," calling him a "crackpot" for his adoption of 9/11 conspiracy theories. Also, on the back of his book ''Hitch-22,'' among the praise from notable writers and figures, a Vidal quote endorsing Hitchens as his successor is crossed out with a red 'X' and a message saying "NO C.H." His strong advocacy of the war in Iraq had gained Hitchens a wider readership, and in September 2005 he was named one of the "Top 100 Public Intellectuals" by ''Foreign Policy'' and ''Prospect'' magazines. An online poll ranked the 100 intellectuals, but the magazines noted that the rankings of Hitchens (5), Noam Chomsky (1), and Abdolkarim Soroush (15) were partly due to supporters publicising the vote.

In 2007 Hitchens' work for ''Vanity Fair'' won him the National Magazine Award in the category "Columns and Commentary". He was a finalist once more in the same category in 2008 for some of his columns in ''Slate'' but lost out to Matt Taibbi of ''Rolling Stone''. He won the National Magazine Award for Columns about Cancer in 2011. Hitchens also served on the Advisory Board of Secular Coalition for America and offered advice to Coalition on the acceptance and inclusion of nontheism in American life.

Literature reviews

Hitchens wrote a monthly essay on books in ''The Atlantic'' and contributed occasionally to other literary journals. One of his books, ''Unacknowledged Legislation: Writers in the Public Sphere'', is a collection of such works, and ''Love, Poverty and War'' contains a section devoted to literary essays. In ''Why Orwell Matters'', he defends Orwell's writings against modern critics as relevant today and progressive for his time. In the 2008 book ''Christopher Hitchens and His Critics: Terror, Iraq, and the Left'', many literary critiques are included of essays and other books of writers, such as David Horowitz and Edward Said.

During a three-hour interview by ''Book TV'', he named authors who have had influence on his views, including Aldous Huxley, George Orwell, Evelyn Waugh, P. G. Wodehouse and Conor Cruise O'Brien.

Political views

The ''San Francisco Chronicle'' referred to Hitchens as a "gadfly with gusto". In 2009, Hitchens was listed by ''Forbes'' magazine as one of the "25 most influential liberals in the U.S. media". However, the same article noted that he would "likely be aghast to find himself on this list", since it reduces his self-styled radicalism to mere liberalism. Hitchens' political perspective can be found in his wide ranging writings which include many of the political dialogues he published.

Socialism

Hitchens became a socialist "largely [as] the outcome of a study of history, taking sides ... in the battles over industrialism and war and empire." In 2001, he told Rhys Southan of ''Reason'' magazine that he could no longer say "I am a socialist." Socialists, he claimed, had ceased to offer a positive alternative to the capitalist system. Capitalism had become the more revolutionary economic system, and he welcomed globalisation as "innovative and internationalist", but added, "I don't think that the contradictions, as we used to say, of the system, are by any means all resolved." He stated that he had a renewed interest in the freedom of the individual from the state, but that he still considered libertarianism "ahistorical" both on the world stage and in the work of creating a stable and functional society, adding that libertarians are "more worried about the over-mighty state than the unaccountable corporation" whereas "the present state of affairs ... combines the worst of bureaucracy with the worst of the insurance companies."

In 2006, in a town hall meeting in Pennsylvania debating the Jewish Tradition with Martin Amis, Hitchens commented on his political philosophy by stating, "I am no longer a socialist, but I still am a Marxist". In a June 2010 interview with ''The New York Times'', he stated that "I still think like a Marxist in many ways. I think the materialist conception of history is valid. I consider myself a very conservative Marxist". In 2009, in an article for ''The Atlantic'' entitled "The Revenge of Karl Marx", Hitchens frames the late-2000s recession in terms of Marx's economic analysis and notes how much Marx admired the capitalist system he was calling for the end of, but says that Marx ultimately failed to grasp how revolutionary capitalist innovation was. Hitchens was an admirer of Che Guevara, commenting that "[Che's] death meant a lot to me and countless like me at the time, he was a role model, albeit an impossible one for us bourgeois romantics insofar as he went and did what revolutionaries were meant to do — fought and died for his beliefs." However, in an essay written in 1997, he distanced himself somewhat from some of Che's actions.

He continued to regard both Vladimir Lenin and Leon Trotsky as great men, and the October Revolution as a necessary event in the modernization of Russia. In 2005, Hitchens praised Lenin's creation of "secular Russia" and his discrediting of the Russian Orthodox Church, describing it as "an absolute warren of backwardness and evil and superstition".

Iraq War and the war on terror

The years after the ''fatwa'' issued against Salman Rushdie saw Hitchens looking for allies and friends. In the United States he became increasingly critical of what he called "excuse making" on the left. At the same time, he was attracted to the foreign policy ideas of some on the Republican-right that promoted pro-liberalism intervention, especially the neoconservative group that included Paul Wolfowitz. Around this time, he befriended the Iraqi dissident and businessman Ahmed Chalabi. In 2004, Hitchens stated that neoconservative support for US intervention in Iraq convinced him that he was "on the same side as the neo-conservatives" when it came to contemporary foreign policy issues. Hitchens had also been known to refer to his association with "temporary neocon allies".

Following the September 11 attacks, Hitchens and Noam Chomsky debated the nature of radical Islam and the proper response to it. In October 2001, Hitchens wrote criticisms of Chomsky in ''The Nation''. Chomsky responded and Hitchens issued a rebuttal to Chomsky to which Chomsky again responded. Approximately a year after the September 11 attacks and his exchanges with Chomsky, Hitchens left ''The Nation'', claiming that its editors, readers and contributors considered John Ashcroft a bigger threat than Osama bin Laden, and that they were making excuses on behalf of Islamist terrorism; in the following months he wrote articles increasingly at odds with his colleagues. This highly charged exchange of letters involved Katha Pollitt and Alexander Cockburn, as well as Hitchens and Chomsky.

Christopher Hitchens argued the case for the Iraq War in a 2003 collection of essays entitled ''A Long Short War: The Postponed Liberation of Iraq'', and he has held numerous public debates on the topic with George Galloway and Scott Ritter. Though he admitted to the numerous failures of the war, and its high civilian casualties, he stood by the position that deposing Saddam Hussein was a long-overdue responsibility of the United States, after decades of poor policy, and that holding free elections in Iraq had been a success not to be scoffed at. He argued that a continued fight in Iraq against insurgents, whether they be former Saddam loyalists or Islamic extremists, was a fight worth having, and that those insurgents, not American forces, should have been the ones taking the brunt of the blame for a slow reconstruction and high civilian casualties.

Criticism of George W. Bush

Prior to September 11, 2001, and the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan, Hitchens was highly critical of Bush's "non-interventionist" foreign policy. He also criticized Bush's support of intelligent design and capital punishment.

Although Hitchens defended Bush's post-September 11 foreign policy, he criticized the actions of U.S. troops in Abu Ghraib and Haditha, and the U.S. government's use of waterboarding, which he unhesitatingly deemed as torture after being invited by ''Vanity Fair'' to voluntarily undergo it. In January 2006, Hitchens joined with four other individuals and four organizations, including the American Civil Liberties Union and Greenpeace, as plaintiffs in a lawsuit, ''ACLU v. NSA'', challenging Bush's warrantless domestic spying program; the lawsuit was filed by the ACLU.

Presidential endorsements

Hitchens would elaborate on his political views and ideological shift in a discussion with Eric Alterman on Bloggingheads.tv. In this discussion Hitchens revealed himself to be a supporter of Ralph Nader in the 2000 U.S. presidential election, who was disenchanted with the candidacy of both George W. Bush and Al Gore.

Hitchens made a brief return to ''The Nation'' just before the 2004 U.S. presidential election and wrote that he was "slightly" for Bush; shortly afterwards, ''Slate'' polled its staff on their positions on the candidates and mistakenly printed Hitchens' vote as pro-John Kerry. Hitchens shifted his opinion to "neutral", saying: "It's absurd for liberals to talk as if Kristallnacht is impending with Bush, and it's unwise and indecent for Republicans to equate Kerry with capitulation. There's no one to whom he can surrender, is there? I think that the nature of the jihadist enemy will decide things in the end".

In the 2008 presidential election, Hitchens in an article for ''Slate'' stated, "I used to call myself a single-issue voter on the essential question of defending civilization against its terrorist enemies and their totalitarian protectors, and on that 'issue' I hope I can continue to expose and oppose any ambiguity." He was critical of both main party candidates, Barack Obama and John McCain. Hitchens went on to support Obama, calling McCain "senile", and his choice of running mate Sarah Palin "absurd", calling Palin a "pathological liar" and a "national disgrace".

Blumenthal–Hitchens feud

Hitchens and Carol Blue chose to submit an affidavit to the trial managers of the Republican Party in the trial of impeachment of Bill Clinton. In the affidavit, Blue and Hitchens swore that their then-friend, Sidney Blumenthal, had described Monica Lewinsky as a stalker. This allegation contradicted Blumenthal's own sworn deposition in the trial, and it resulted in a hostile exchange of opinion in the public sphere between Hitchens and Blumenthal. Following the publication of Blumenthal's ''The Clinton Wars,'' Hitchens wrote several pieces in which he accused Blumenthal of manipulating the facts.

Israel–Palestine

Hitchens had said of himself, "I am an Anti-Zionist. I'm one of those people of Jewish descent who believes that Zionism would be a mistake even if there were no Palestinians."

A review of his autobiography ''Hitch-22'' in the ''Jewish Daily Forward'' refers to Hitchens as "a prominent anti-Zionist" and says that he views Zionism "as an injustice against the Palestinians". Others have commented on his anti-Zionism as well suggesting that his memoir was "marred by the occasional eruption of [his] anti-Zionism". The ''Jewish Daily Forward'' quoted him saying of Israel's prospects for the future, "I have never been able to banish the queasy inner suspicion that Israel just did not look, or feel, either permanent or sustainable."

In ''Slate'', Hitchens pondered the notion that, instead of curing antisemitism through the creation of a Jewish state, "Zionism has only replaced and repositioned" it, saying: "there are three groups of 6 million Jews. The first 6 million live in what the Zionist movement used to call Palestine. The second 6 million live in the United States. The third 6 million are distributed mainly among Russia, France, Britain, and Argentina. Only the first group lives daily in range of missiles that can be (and are) launched by people who hate Jews." Hitchens argued that instead of supporting Zionism, Jews should help "secularize and reform their own societies", believing that unless one is religious, "what the hell are you doing in the greater Jerusalem area in the first place?"

During a town hall function in Pennsylvania with Martin Amis, Hitchens stated that "one must not insult or degrade or humiliate people" and that he "would be opposed to this maltreatment of the Palestinians if it took place on a remote island with no geopolitical implications". Hitchens described Zionism as "an ethno-nationalist quasi-religious ideology" and stated his desire that if possible, he would "re-wind the tape [to] stop Hertzl from telling the initial demagogic lie (actually two lies) that a land without a people needs a people without a land".

He continued to say that Zionism "nonetheless has founded a sort of democratic state which isn't any worse in its practice than many others with equally dubious origins." He stated that settlement in order to achieve security for Israel is "doomed to fail in the worst possible way", and the cessation of this "appallingly racist and messianic delusion" would "confront the internal clerical and chauvinist forces which want to instate a theocracy for Jews". However, Hitchens contended that the "solution of withdrawal would not satisfy the jihadists" and wondered "What did they imagine would be the response of the followers of the Prophet [Muhammad]?" Hitchens bemoaned the transference into religious terrorism of Arab secularism as a means of democratization: "the most depressing and wretched spectacle of the past decade, for all those who care about democracy and secularism, has been the degeneration of Palestinian Arab nationalism into the theocratic and thanatocratic hell of Hamas and Islamic Jihad". He maintained that the Israel-Palestine conflict is a "trivial squabble" that has become "so dangerous to all of us" because of "the faith-based element."

Hitchens collaborated on this issue with prominent Palestinian advocate Edward Said, in 1988 publishing ''Blaming the Victims: Spurious Scholarship and the Palestinian Question''.

Domestic policy

Hitchens actively supported drug policy reform and called for the abolition of the "War on Drugs" which he described as an "authoritarian war" during a debate with William F. Buckley. He supported the legalization of cannabis for both medical and recreational purposes, citing it as a cure for glaucoma and as treatment for numerous side-effects induced by chemotherapy, including severe nausea, describing the prohibition of the drug as "sadistic". On the issue of abortion, Hitchens prioritized in affirming that he believed a fetus should be regarded as an "unborn child", but opposed the overturning of ''Roe v. Wade'' and supported the development of medical abortion techniques, and fundamentally believed in access to contraceptives and reproductive rights as "the only thing that is known to cure poverty", and in order to prevent surgical abortion altogether.

Other

Other issues Hitchens wrote on the subjects of included his support for the reunification of Ireland, abolition of the British monarchy, and his condemnation of the war crimes of Slobodan Milošević and Franjo Tuđman in Yugoslavia, and the Bosnian War.

Critiques of specific individuals

Hitchens was known for his scathing critiques of public figures. Three figures — Bill Clinton, Henry Kissinger, and Mother Teresa — were the targets of three separate full length texts, ''No One Left to Lie To: The Triangulations of William Jefferson Clinton'', ''The Trial of Henry Kissinger'', and ''The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice''. Hitchens also wrote book-length biographical essays about Thomas Jefferson (''Thomas Jefferson: Author of America''), George Orwell (''Why Orwell Matters''), and Thomas Paine (''Thomas Paine's "Rights of Man": A Biography'').

However, the majority of Hitchens's critiques took the form of short opinion pieces, some of the more notable being his critiques of: Jerry Falwell, George Galloway, Mel Gibson, Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, Michael Moore, Daniel Pipes, Ronald Reagan, Jesse Helms, and Cindy Sheehan.

Views on religion

Hitchens often spoke out against the Abrahamic religions, or what he called "the three great monotheisms" (Judaism, Christianity and Islam). He said: "The real axis of evil is Christianity, Judaism, and Islam". In his book, ''God Is Not Great'', Hitchens expanded his criticism to include all religions, including those rarely criticized by Western secularists such as Hinduism and neo-paganism. His book had mixed reactions, from praise in ''The New York Times'' for his "logical flourishes and conundrums" to accusations of "intellectual and moral shabbiness" in the ''Financial Times''. ''God Is Not Great'' was nominated for a National Book Award on 10 October 2007.

Hitchens contended that organized religion is "the main source of hatred in the world", "[v]iolent, irrational, intolerant, allied to racism, tribalism, and bigotry, invested in ignorance and hostile to free inquiry, contemptuous of women and coercive toward children", and that accordingly it "ought to have a great deal on its conscience". In ''God Is Not Great'', Hitchens contends that:

[A]bove all, we are in need of a renewed Enlightenment, which will base itself on the proposition that the proper study of mankind is man and woman [referencing Alexander Pope]. This Enlightenment will not need to depend, like its predecessors, on the heroic breakthroughs of a few gifted and exceptionally courageous people. It is within the compass of the average person. The study of literature and poetry, both for its own sake and for the eternal ethical questions with which it deals, can now easily depose the scrutiny of sacred texts that have been found to be corrupt and confected. The pursuit of unfettered scientific inquiry, and the availability of new findings to masses of people by electronic means, will revolutionize our concepts of research and development. Very importantly, the divorce between the sexual life and fear, and the sexual life and disease, and the sexual life and tyranny, can now at last be attempted, on the sole condition that we banish all religions from the discourse. And all this and more is, for the first time in our history, within the reach if not the grasp of everyone.

His book rendered him one of the major advocates of the "New Atheism", and he also was made an Honorary Associate of the National Secular Society. Hitchens said he would accept an invitation from any religious leader who wished to debate with him. He also served on the advisory board of the Secular Coalition for America, a lobbying group for atheists and humanists in Washington, DC. In 2007, Hitchens began a series of written debates on the question "Is Christianity Good for the World?" with Christian theologian and pastor, Douglas Wilson, published in ''Christianity Today'' magazine. This exchange eventually became a book by the same title in 2008. During their book tour to promote the book, film producer Darren Doane sent a film crew to accompany them. Doane produced the film ''Collision'': "Is Christianity GOOD for the World?" which was released on 27 October 2009.

On 26 November 2010 Hitchens appeared in Toronto, Canada at the Munk Debates, where he debated religion with former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, a convert to Roman Catholicism. Blair argued religion is a force for good, while Hitchens was against it. Preliminary results on the Munk website said 56 per cent of the votes backed the proposition (Hitchens' position) before hearing the debate, with 22 per cent against (Blair's position), and 21 per cent undecided, with the undecided voters leaning toward Hitchens, giving him a 68 per cent to 32 per cent victory over Blair, after the debate.

In February 2006, Hitchens helped organize a pro-Denmark rally outside the Danish Embassy in Washington, DC in response to the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy.

Hitchens was accused by William A. Donohue of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Liberties of being particularly anti-Catholic. Hitchens responded, "when religion is attacked in this country [...] the Catholic Church comes in for a little more than its fair share". Hitchens had also been accused of anti-Catholic bigotry by others, including Brent Bozell, Tom Piatak in ''The American Conservative'', and UCLA Law Professor Stephen Bainbridge. In an interview with ''Radar'' in 2007, Hitchens said that if the Christian right's agenda were implemented in the United States "It wouldn't last very long and would, I hope, lead to civil war, which they will lose, but for which it would be a great pleasure to take part." When Joe Scarborough on 12 March 2004 asked Hitchens whether he was "consumed with hatred for conservative Catholics", Hitchens responded that he was not and that he just thinks that "all religious belief is sinister and infantile". Piatak claimed that "A straightforward description of all Hitchens's anti-Catholic outbursts would fill every page in this magazine", noting particularly Hitchens' assertion that U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Roberts should not be confirmed because of his faith.

Hitchens was raised nominally Christian, and went to Christian boarding schools but from an early age declined to participate in communal prayers. Later in life, Hitchens discovered that he was of partially Jewish ancestry. According to Hitchens, when his brother Peter took his fiancée to meet their maternal grandmother, who was then in her 90s, she said of his fiancée, "She's Jewish, isn't she?" and then announced: "Well, I've got something to tell you. So are you." Hitchens found out that his maternal grandmother, Dorothy Levin, was raised Jewish (Dorothy's father and maternal grandfather had both been born Jewish, and Dorothy's maternal grandmother – Hitchens' matrilineal great-great-grandmother – was a convert to Judaism). Hitchens' maternal grandfather converted to Judaism before marrying Dorothy Levin. Hitchens' Jewish-born ancestors were immigrants from Eastern Europe (including Poland). In an article in the ''The Guardian'' on 14 April 2002, Hitchens stated that he could be considered Jewish because Jewish descent is matrilineal. In a 2010 interview at New York Public Library, Hitchens stated that he was against circumcision, a Jewish tradition, and that he believed "if anyone wants to saw off bits of their genitalia they should do when they're grown up and have made the decision for themselves".

In February 2010, he was named to the Freedom From Religion Foundation's Honorary Board of distinguished achievers.

Personal life

Marriages and children

Hitchens married Eleni Meleagrou, a Greek Cypriot, in a Greek Orthodox church in 1981; the couple had a son, Alexander and a daughter, Sophia. In 1989 Hitchens left Meleagrou for Carol Blue, an American writer. The couple married in a New York synagogue; they had a daughter, Antonia.

Relationship with his younger brother

Hitchens' younger brother by two-and-a-half years, Peter Hitchens, is a Christian and socially conservative journalist in London, although, like his brother, he had been a Trotskyist in the 1970s. The brothers had a protracted falling-out after Peter wrote that Christopher had once joked that he "didn't care if the Red Army watered its horses at Hendon" (a suburb of London). and at the Pew Forum on 12 October 2010.

Smoking and drinking

A June 2006 profile on Hitchens by NPR stated: "Hitchens is known for his love of cigarettes and alcohol — and his prodigious literary output." However, in late 2007 he gave up smoking, undergoing an epiphany in Madison, Wisconsin. His brother Peter later wrote of his surprise at this decision. It was while writing his memoir ''Hitch-22'' that he resumed smoking cigarettes and continued until his cancer diagnosis. Hitchens admitted to drinking heavily; in 2003 he wrote that his daily intake of alcohol was enough "to kill or stun the average mule", noting that many great writers "did some of their finest work when blotto, smashed, polluted, shitfaced, squiffy, whiffled, and three sheets to the wind."

British politician George Galloway, founder of the socialist Respect Party, on his way to testify in front of a United States Senate sub-committee investigating the scandals in the U.N. Oil-for-Food programme, called Hitchens a "drink-sodden ex-Trotskyist popinjay", to which Hitchens quickly replied, "only some of which is true". Later, in a column for ''Slate'' promoting his debate with Galloway which was to take place on 14 September 2005, he elaborated on his prior response: "He says that I am an ex-Trotskyist (true), a 'popinjay' (true enough, since the word's original Webster's definition is a target for arrows and shots), and that I cannot hold a drink (here I must protest)."

Oliver Burkeman writes, "Since the parting of ways on Iraq [...] Hitchens claims to have detected a new, personalised nastiness in the attacks on him, especially over his fabled consumption of alcohol. He welcomes being attacked as a drinker 'because I always think it's a sign of victory when they move on to the ad hominem.' He drinks, he says, 'because it makes other people less boring. I have a great terror of being bored. But I can work with or without it. It takes quite a lot to get me to slur.'"

In the question and answer session following a speech Hitchens gave to the Commonwealth Club of California on 9 July 2009, one audience member asked what was Hitchens' favorite whisky. Hitchens replied that "the best blended scotch in the history of the world" is Johnnie Walker Black Label. He also playfully indicated that it was the favorite whisky of, among others, the Iraqi Ba'ath Party, the Palestinian Authority, the Libyan dictatorship, and "large branches of the Saudi Arabian Royal Family". He concluded his answer by calling it the "breakfast of champions" and exhorted the audience to "accept no substitute".

In his 2010 memoir ''Hitch-22'', Hitchens wrote: "There was a time when I could reckon to outperform all but the most hardened imbibers, but I now drink relatively carefully." He described his current drinking routine on working-days as follows: "At about half past midday, a decent slug of Mr. Walker's amber restorative, cut with Perrier water (an ideal delivery system) and no ice. At luncheon, perhaps half a bottle of red wine: not always more but never less. Then back to the desk, and ready to repeat the treatment at the evening meal. No 'after dinner drinks' — ​most especially nothing sweet and never, ever any brandy. 'Nightcaps' depend on how well the day went, but always the mixture as before. No mixing: no messing around with a gin here and a vodka there."

Reflecting on the lifestyle that supported his career as a writer he said:

I always knew there was a risk in the bohemian lifestyle ... I decided to take it because it helped my concentration, it stopped me being bored — it stopped other people being boring. It would make me want to prolong the conversation and enhance the moment. If you ask: would I do it again? I would probably say yes. But I would have quit earlier hoping to get away with the whole thing. I decided all of life is a wager and I'm going to wager on this bit ... In a strange way I don't regret it. It's just impossible for me to picture life without wine, and other things, fueling the company, keeping me reading, energising me. It worked for me. It really did.

Esophageal cancer and death

In June 2010, Hitchens postponed his book tour for ''Hitch-22'' to undergo treatment for esophageal cancer. He announced that he was undergoing treatment in a ''Vanity Fair'' piece entitled "Topic of Cancer". Hitchens said that he recognised the long-term prognosis was far from positive, and that he would be a "very lucky person to live another five years". In November 2010, Hitchens canceled a scheduled appearance in New York, where he was to debate religion writers David Hazony and Stephen Prothero on the subject of the Ten Commandments. Earlier that year, he published a piece in ''Vanity Fair'' on the subject, and was working on a book about the Ten Commandments as well.

During his illness, Hitchens was under the care of Francis Collins and was the subject of Collins' new cancer treatment which maps out the human genome and selectively targets damaged DNA.

In April 2011, Hitchens was forced to cancel an appearance at the American Atheist Convention, and instead sent a letter that stated, "Nothing would have kept me from joining you except the loss of my voice (at least my speaking voice) which in turn is due to a long argument I am currently having with the specter of death." He closed with "And don't keep the faith." The letter also dismissed the notion of a possible deathbed conversion, in which he claimed that "redemption and supernatural deliverance appears even more hollow and artificial to me than it did before." In June 2011, he spoke to a University of Waterloo audience via a home video link.

In October 2011, Hitchens made a public appearance at the Texas Freethought Convention in Houston, TX. ''Atheist Alliance of America'' was also a participant in the joint convention.

In November 2011, George Eaton wrote in the ''New Statesman'':

The tragedy of Hitchens' illness is that it came at a time when he enjoyed a larger audience than ever. Of his tight circle of friends – Amis, Fenton, McEwan, Rushdie – Hitchens was the last to gain international renown, yet he is now read more widely than any of them." Eaton revealed that Hitchens would like to be remembered as a man who fought totalitarianism in all its forms although many remember him as a "lefty who turned right", and his support of the Iraq War and not his support of the War in Bosnia on the side of the Moslems. Eaton concluded, "The great polemicist is certain to be remembered, but, as he is increasingly aware, perhaps not as he would like."

Hitchens died on 15 December 2011 at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.

In accordance with his wishes, his body was donated to medical research.

Reactions to death

Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair said, "Christopher Hitchens was a complete one-off, an amazing mixture of writer, journalist, polemicist, and unique character. He was fearless in the pursuit of truth and any cause in which he believed. And there was no belief he held, that he did not advocate with passion, commitment and brilliance. He was an extraordinary, compelling and colorful human being whom it was a privilege to know."

Richard Dawkins, a British evolutionary biologist at the University of Oxford and a friend of Hitchens', said, "I think he was one of the greatest orators of all time. He was a polymath, a wit, immensely knowledgeable, and a valiant fighter against all tyrants including imaginary supernatural ones."

Norman Finkelstein, an American political scientist and author, wrote, "When I first learned that Hitchens was diagnosed with an excruciating and terminal cancer, it caused me to doubt my atheism. The news came just as Hitchens was about to go on a book tour for his long-awaited memoir. It was as if he was setting out on his victory lap when the adulating crowds were supposed to fawn over him and — wham! — his legs were lopped off at the kneecaps. The irony could not be more perfect: the god that the vindictive but witty Mr. Hitchens made a career scoffing at turns out to be ... vindictive but witty. When I heard that Hitchens was dead, I took a deep breath. The air felt cleaner, as if after a 40-day and 40-night downpour." Finkelstein also added, "I get no satisfaction from Hitchens's passing. Although he was the last to know it, every death is a tragedy, if only for the bereft child — or, as in the case of Cindy Sheehan, bereft parent — left behind.

Sam Harris, an American writer and neuroscientist, wrote, "I have been privileged to witness the gratitude that so many people feel for Hitch’s life and work — for, wherever I speak, I meet his fans. On my last book tour, those who attended my lectures could not contain their delight at the mere mention of his name — and many of them came up to get their books signed primarily to request that I pass along their best wishes to him. It was wonderful to see how much Hitch was loved and admired — and to be able to share this with him before the end. I will miss you, brother."

Francis Collins, the director of the National Institutes of Health and the former head of the Human Genome Project who helped treat Hitchens' illness, wrote, "I will miss Christopher. I will miss the brilliant turn of phrase, the good-natured banter, the wry sideways smile when he was about to make a remark that would make me laugh out loud. No doubt he now knows the answer to the question of whether there is more to the spirit than just atoms and molecules. I hope he was surprised by the answer. I hope to hear him tell about it someday. He will tell it really well."

British columnist and author Peter Hitchens, who had a tumultuous relationship with his older brother Christopher, wrote that he and Christopher "got on surprisingly well in the past few months, better than for about 50 years as it happens," and praised his brother as "courageous."

Irish-American political journalist Alexander Cockburn, founder of the left-wing political magazine ''CounterPunch'' wrote an obituary critical of Hitchens, criticizing his support for the Iraq War, criticisms of Mother Teresa, and criticisms of their mutual friend Edward Said and concluded, "I found the Hitchens cult of recent years entirely mystifying. He endured his final ordeal with pluck, sustained indomitably by his wife Carol."

Tributes followed from the philosopher Daniel Dennett, the physicist Lawrence Krauss, the actor Stephen Fry, the writer Ian McEwan; and ''Vanity Fair'', in which he was remembered as an "incomparable critic and masterful rhetorician".

Film and television appearances

As referenced from the Internet Movie Database, Hitchens Web or Charlie Rose. {|class="wikitable" style="text-align:center" |- ! Year ! Film and/or Television |- |1984 |align="left" | ''Opinions'': "Greece to their Rome" |- |1988 |align="left" | ''Frontiers (TV series)'' |- |1993 |align="left" | ''Everything You Need to Know'' |- |1994 |align="left" | ''Tracking Down Maggie: The Unofficial Biography of Margaret Thatcher'' |- |1994 |align="left" | ''Hell's Angel'' |- |1996 |align="left" | ''Where's Elvis This Week?'' |- |1996–2010 |align="left" | ''Charlie Rose (talk show)'' (13 episodes) |- |1998 |align="left" | ''Princess Diana: The Mourning After'' |- |1999–2002 |align="left" | ''Dennis Miller Live'' (TV show) (4 episodes) |- |2002 |align="left" | ''The Trials of Henry Kissinger'' |- |2003 |align="left" | ''Hidden in Plain Sight'' |- |2003–2009 |align="left" | ''Real Time with Bill Maher'' (TV show) (6 episodes) |- |2004 |align="left" | ''Mel Gibson: God's Lethal Weapon'' |- |2004–2006 |align="left" | ''Newsnight'' (TV show) (3 episodes) |- |2004–2010 |align="left" | ''The Daily Show'' (TV show) (4 episodes) |- |2005 |align="left" | ''Penn & Teller: Bullshit!'' (TV show)(1 episode, s03e05) |- |2005 |align="left" | ''The Al Franken Show'' (TV show)(1 episode) |- |2005 |align="left" | ''Confronting Iraq: Conflict and Hope'' |- |2005 |align="left" | ''Heaven on Earth: The Rise and Fall of Socialism'' |- |2005–2008 |align="left" | ''Hardball with Chris Matthews'' (TV show)(3 episodes) |- |2006 |align="left" | ''American Zeitgeist'' |- |2006 |align="left" | ''Blog Wars'' |- |2007 |align="left" | ''Manufacturing Dissent'' |- |2007 |align="left" | ''Question Time (TV series)'' (1 episode) |- |2007 |align="left" | ''Your Mommy Kills Animals'' |- |2007 |align="left" | ''Personal Che'' |- |2007 |align="left" | ''Heckler'' |- |2007 |align="left" | ''In Pot We Trust'' |- |2008 |align="left" | ''Discussions with Richard Dawkins'': Episode 1: "The Four Horsemen" |- |2008 | style="text-align:left;"| ''Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed '' |- |2009 |align="left" | ''Holy Hell'' |- |2009 |align="left" | ''Presidency'' |- |2009 |align="left" | ''Collision: "Is Christianity GOOD for the World?"'' |- |2010 |align="left" | ''Phil Ochs: There But For Fortune'' |}

Selected publications

1984 ''Cyprus''. Quartet. Revised editions as ''Hostage to History: Cyprus from the Ottomans to Kissinger'', 1989 (Farrar, Straus & Giroux) and 1997 (Verso)

1988 ''Blaming the Victims: Spurious Scholarship and the Palestinian Question'' (contributor; co-editor with Edward Said) Verso, ISBN 0-86091-887-4 Reissued, 2001

1990 ''The Monarchy'', Chatto & Windus Ltd

1990 ''Blood, Class and Nostalgia: Anglo-American Ironies'',Farrar Straus & Giroux (T)(June 1990)

1995 ''The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice'', Verso

1997 ''The Parthenon Marbles: The Case for Reunification'', Verso

1999 ''No One Left to Lie To: The Values of the Worst Family'', Verso

2000 ''Unacknowledged Legislation: Writers in the Public Sphere'', Verso

2001 ''The Trial of Henry Kissinger''. Verso.

2001 ''Letters to a Young Contrarian'', Basic Books

2002 ''Why Orwell Matters'' also ''Orwell's Victory'', Basic Books, ISBN 0-465-03050-5

2004 ''Love, Poverty, and War: Journeys and Essays'', Thunder's Mouth, Nation Books, ISBN 1-56025-580-3

2005 ''Thomas Jefferson: Author of America'', Eminent Lives/Atlas Books/HarperCollins Publishers, ISBN 0-06-059896-4

2007 "Thomas Paine's Rights of Man: A Biography ",Atlantic Monthly Press,ISBN-10: 0871139553

2007 ''The Portable Atheist: Essential Readings for the Non-Believer'', [Editor] Perseus Publishing. ISBN 978-0-306-81608-6

2007 ''God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything'', Twelve/Hachette Book Group USA/Warner Books, ISBN 0-446-57980-7 / Published in the UK as ''God Is Not Great: The Case Against Religion'', Atlantic Books, ISBN 978-1-84354-586-6

2008 ''Christopher Hitchens and His Critics: Terror, Iraq and the Left'' (with Simon Cottee and Thomas Cushman), New York University Press

2008 ''Is Christianity Good for the World? — A Debate'' (co-author, with Douglas Wilson), Canon Press, ISBN 1-59128-053-2

2010 ''Hitch-22: A Memoir'', Twelve, ISBN 978-0-446-54033-9

2011 ''Arguably: Essays by Christopher Hitchens'', Twelve. UK edition as ''Arguably: Selected Prose'', Atlantic, ISBN 1-4555-0277-4 / ISBN 978-1-4555-0277-6

References

External links

Daily Hitchens, an archive of material on or by Hitchens

in 2010

Drexel Interview (One-hour video interview) with Paula Marantz Cohen, June 2010

Christopher Hitchens collected news and commentary at ''The Boston Globe''

"Journalist Christopher Hitchens fully embraces the Bush war camp" from the World Socialist Website, October 2002

"Christopher Hitchens" feature story in ''Prospect'' magazine, May 2008

"Incendiary Author Spares No Targets" feature story in ''The New Zealand Herald'', May 2008

"Such, Such are His Joys" David Brooks assessment in ''The New York Times'', 1 July 2010

Hitchens on Dying with Cancer, video interview with ''The Atlantic'', August 2010

"Christopher Hitchens: 'You have to choose your future regrets'" ''The Guardian'', 13 November 2010

"Christopher Hitchens's Jewish Problem" feature article on ''Jewish Ideas Daily,'' 13 December 2010

A debate between Hitchens and Berlinski 2010

Outspoken and outrageous: Christopher Hitchens a 60 Minutes profile aired 6 March 2011

''Booknotes'' interview with Hitchens on ''For the Sake of Argument'', 17 October 1993.

;Articles by Hitchens

Contributor page at ''Vanity Fair''

Column archive at ''The Atlantic''

Article archive at ''The Guardian''

Hitchens articles at ''Slate''

Article archive at Journalisted

Category:1949 births Category:2011 deaths Category:Alumni of Balliol College, Oxford Category:Anti-Zionism Category:Anti–Vietnam War activists Category:Antitheists Category:Atheism activists Category:British people of Jewish descent Category:British people of Polish descent Category:British republicans Category:Cancer deaths in Texas Category:Deaths from esophageal cancer Category:English atheists Category:English biographers Category:English emigrants to the United States Category:English essayists Category:English expatriates in the United States Category:English humanists Category:English journalists Category:English Marxists Category:English political writers Category:Genital integrity activists Category:Materialists Category:Naturalized citizens of the United States Category:Old Leysians Category:People from Portsmouth Category:Slate (magazine) people Category:The Nation (U.S. magazine) people Category:University Challenge contestants

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Coordinates	12°58′0″N77°34′0″N
name	Gary Shteyngart
birth date	1972
birth place	Leningrad, USSR
occupation	Novelist
nationality	United States
website	}}

Gary Shteyngart (born Igor Shteyngart in 1972) is an American writer born in Leningrad, USSR. Much of his work is satirical and relies on the invention of elaborately fictitious yet somehow familiar places and times.

Life

Shteyngart spent the first seven years of his childhood living in a square dominated by a huge statue of Vladimir Lenin in what is now St. Petersburg, Russia; (he alternately calls it "St. Leningrad" or "St. Leninsburg"). He comes from a Jewish family and describes his family as typically Soviet. His father worked as an engineer in a LOMO camera factory; his mother was a pianist. Shteyngart emigrated to the United States in 1979 and was brought up with no television in the apartment in which he lived, where English was not the household language. He did not shed his thick Russian accent until the age of 14.

Shteyngart took a trip to Prague, and this experience helped spawn his first novel, set in the fictitious European city of Prava. He is a graduate of Stuyvesant High School in New York City, Oberlin College in Ohio, where he earned a degree in politics, and Hunter College of the City University of New York, where he earned an MFA in Creative Writing.

Shteyngart now lives in the Lower East Side of Manhattan. He has taught writing at Hunter College, and currently teaches writing at Columbia University and Princeton University.

Gary Shteyngart was a Citigroup Fellow at the American Academy in Berlin, Germany, for Fall 2007.

Awards

Shteyngart's work has received numerous awards. ''Absurdistan'' was chosen as one of the ten best books of the year by ''The New York Times Book Review'' and ''Time'' magazine, as well as a book of the year by the ''Washington Post'', ''Chicago Tribune'', ''San Francisco Chronicle'' and many other publications. ''The Russian Debutante's Handbook'' won the Stephen Crane Award for First Fiction, the Book-of-the-Month Club First Fiction Award and the National Jewish Book Award for Fiction. It was named a ''New York Times'' Notable Book and one of the best debuts of the year by ''The Guardian''. In 2002, he was named one of the five best new writers by ''Shout NY'' Magazine. In June 2010, Shteyngart was named as one of ''The New Yorker'' magazine's "20 under 40" luminary fiction writers.

Work

Shteyngart's novels include ''The Russian Debutante's Handbook'' (2002), ''Absurdistan'' (2006), and ''Super Sad True Love Story'' (2010). His other writing has appeared in ''The New Yorker'', ''Slate'', ''Granta'', ''Travel and Leisure'', and ''The New York Times''.

Bibliography

''The Russian Debutante's Handbook'' (2002)

''Absurdistan'' (2006)

''Super Sad True Love Story'' (2010)

References

External links

Biography at barnesandnoble.com

"Gary Shteyngart Becomes American" from Jewcy Magazine

Interview with Georgetown's Program for Jewish Civilization

Interview: 'On Meat over Meat: Dinner with Gary Shteyngart,' published in ''Gigantic''

Interview in the ''Forward''

Interview at ''Web del Sol.''

'' Interview'' from Modern Drunkard Magazine titled '10 Drinks with Gary Shteyngart'

''"Absurdistan", by Gary Shteyngart – Russian Unorthodox'', review by Walter Kirn, New York Times, April 30, 2006

With Zadie Smith at McNally Robinson

Interview with Gary Shteyngart about Absurdistan, English and Italian version. BOOKSWEB TV

''Over There'' by Gary Shteyngart from Granta 84

Interview with Gary Shteyngart: On Travel Writing

http://therumpus.net/2009/10/james-francos-face/?full=yes

Interview with Gary Shteyngart: On Stuyvesant High School

Radio interview with Gary Shteyngart on CBC Radio One's ''Writers and Company''

Category:1972 births Category:Living people Category:American people of Russian-Jewish descent Category:Soviet emigrants to the United States Category:Oberlin College alumni Category:Hunter College alumni Category:People from Saint Petersburg Category:Stuyvesant High School alumni Category:Hunter College faculty Category:Columbia University faculty Category:Princeton University faculty Category:American satirists Category:Jewish American novelists

de:Gary Shteyngart es:Gary Shteyngart fr:Gary Shteyngart it:Gary Shteyngart no:Gary Shteyngart ru:Штейнгарт, Гари sl:Gary Shteyngart

Coordinates	12°58′0″N77°34′0″N
name	Victor Davis Hanson
birth date	5 September 1953
birth place	Fowler, California
occupation	Writer, historian
nationality	American
subject	Military history
website	}}

Victor Davis Hanson (born September 5, 1953) is an American military historian, columnist, political essayist and former classics professor, notable as a scholar of ancient warfare. He has been a commentator on modern warfare and contemporary politics for ''National Review'' and other media outlets. He was for many years a professor of classics at California State University, Fresno, and is currently the Martin and Illie Anderson Senior Fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution.

Hanson was awarded the National Humanities Medal in 2007, the Claremont Institute's Statesmanship Award at its annual Churchill Dinner, and the $250,000 Bradley prize from the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation in 2008.

Hanson is also a farmer (growing raisin grapes on a family farm near Fresno, California) and a critic of social trends related to farming and agrarianism.

Early life, education and today

Hanson, who is of Swedish ancestry, grew up on a family farm at Selma, in the San Joaquin Valley of California. His mother was a lawyer and judge, his father an educator and college administrator. Hanson's father and uncle played college football at the College of the Pacific under Amos Alonzo Stagg. Along with his older brother Nils and fraternal twin Alfred, Hanson attended public schools and graduated from Selma High School. Hanson received his B.A. from the University of California, Santa Cruz in 1975 and his Ph.D. in classics from Stanford University in 1980. He is a Protestant Christian.

Hanson is currently a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and Fellow in California Studies at the Claremont Institute. Until recently, he was professor at California State University, Fresno, where he began teaching in 1984, having created the classics program at that institution.

In 1991 Hanson was awarded an American Philological Association's Excellence in Teaching Award, which is awarded to undergraduate teachers of Greek and Latin. He has been a visiting professor of classics at Stanford University (1991–92), National Endowment for the Humanities fellow at the Center for Advanced Studies in the Behavioral Sciences, Stanford, California (1992–93), as well as holding the visiting Shifrin Chair of Military History at the U.S. Naval Academy, Annapolis, Maryland (2002–03). He was a visiting professor at Hillsdale College in 2004, 2006, and 2007.

Hanson writes two weekly columns, one for ''National Review'' and one syndicated by Tribune Media Services, and has been published in ''The New York Times'', ''The Wall Street Journal'', ''Commentary,'' ''American Heritage'', ''City Journal'', ''The American Spectator'', ''Policy Review'', the ''Claremont Review of Books'', ''The New Criterion'', and ''The Weekly Standard'', among other publications. In 2006, he started blogging at Pajamas Media. In 2007, he was awarded the National Humanities Medal by President George W. Bush.

Many of Hanson's readers refer to him by his initials, "VDH."

Politics

Hanson is a registered member of the Democratic Party but a conservative who voted for George W. Bush in the 2000 and 2004 elections. He has been described as a neoconservative by some commentators, and has stated that: "I came to support neocon approaches first in the wars against the Taliban and Saddam, largely because I saw little alternative." Feeling that the current Democratic Party does not have a morally responsible approach to US foreign policy and no longer addresses the concerns of ordinary Americans, Hanson writes: "The Democratic Party reminds me of the Republicans circa 1965 or so – impotent, shrill, no ideas, conspiratorial, reactive, out-of-touch with most Americans, isolationist, and full of embarrassing spokesmen."

Hanson has been a strong defender of George W. Bush and his policies, especially the Iraq war. He was also a vocal supporter of Bush's Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. Hanson wrote of Rumsfeld that he was: "a rare sort of secretary of the caliber of George Marshall" and a "proud and honest-speaking visionary" whose "hard work and insight are bringing us ever closer to victory."

On the issues pertaining to the constant political turmoil in the Middle East, Hanson emphasises the lack of individual and political freedom in many Middle Eastern nations as a major factor retarding economic, technological and cultural progress. He further relates the root cause of radical Islamic terrorism to insecurities and a need to regain honour and reputation.

Iraq War

Hanson believes that the Iraq War is a good and worthwhile undertaking and that it has been, on the whole, a laudable success. However, he stated in 2008 that he "disagreed with many of the decisions made about the Iraq war", such as the decision to disband the old Iraqi army.

Israeli–Arab Conflict

In his article ''Israel did it'' Hanson asks why Israel was being blamed for responding to attacks by Hezbollah and Hamas that shelled Israel for a few months with deadly rockets while the world was watching indifferently. He explains that if there were not so many civilian casualties inside Israel it was not from the lack of trying. Hanson writes: "Israel was to be blamed because its hundreds of air strikes against combatants were lethal, while Hezbollah was to be excused for shooting off thousands of rockets aimed at civilians because of its relative incompetence."

Hanson also questions how it is that "Jimmy Carter, silent about Iran’s latest promotion for its planned holocaust, is hawking his latest book — in typical fashion, sorta, kinda alleging that the Israelis are like the South Africans in perpetuating an apartheid state, that they are cruel to many Christians, and, as occupiers, are understandably the targets of suicide bombers and other terrorist killers."

Confrontation with Iran

Hanson has argued that the US should take a much more confrontational stance towards Iran, advocating unilateral responses to the acts of war from that country. On the Hugh Hewitt show in August 2007, Hanson stated: "We really need to start doing some things beyond talking, and if that is going into Iranian airspace, or buzzing Iranians, or even starting to forget where the border is and taking out some of these training camps, we need to do that and send a message, because they’re a paper tiger. They really are."

Writings

Hanson cites the Theban general and statesman Epaminondas, Winston Churchill, and the US generals William Tecumseh Sherman and George Patton as his heroes. In the field of military history, Hanson cites John Keegan as being influential, and shares a mutual admiration with fellow classicist Donald Kagan and the historian Steven Ozment.

''Carnage and Culture''

Hanson is perhaps best known for his 2001 book ''Carnage and Culture'', published in some nations (e.g. Australia) as ''Why the West Has Won'', in which he argued that the military dominance of Western Civilization, beginning with the ancient Greeks, is the result of certain fundamental aspects of Western culture, such as consensual government and individualism. Hanson rejects racial explanations for this military preeminence, and disagrees as well with environmental or geographical explanations such as put forth by Jared Diamond in ''Guns, Germs and Steel''.

According to Hanson, Western values such as political freedom, capitalism, individualism, democracy, scientific inquiry, rationalism, and open debate form an especially lethal combination when applied to warfare. Non-Western societies can win the occasional victory when warring against a society with these Western values, writes Hanson, but the "Western way of war" will prevail in the long run. Hanson emphasizes that Western warfare is not necessarily more (or less) moral than war as practiced by other cultures; his argument is simply that the "Western way of war" is unequalled in its devastation and decisiveness.

''Carnage and Culture'' examines nine battles throughout history, each of which is used to illustrate a particular aspect of Western culture that Hanson believes contributes to the dominance of Western warfare. The battles or campaigns recounted (with themes in parenthesis) are the Battle of Salamis (480 BC; free citizens), the Battle of Gaugamela (331 BC; the decisive battle of annihilation), the Battle of Cannae (216 BC; civic militarism), the Battle of Tours/Poitiers (732; infantry), the Battle of Tenochtitlan (1521; technology and reason), the Battle of Lepanto (1571; capitalism), the Battle of Rorke's Drift (1879; discipline), the Battle of Midway (1942; individualism), and the Tet Offensive (1968; dissent).

Though ''Carnage and Culture'' appeared before the September 11, 2001 attacks, its message that the "Western way of war" will ultimately prevail made the book a best-seller in the wake of those events. Immediately after 9/11, ''Carnage and Culture'' was re-issued with a new afterword by Hanson in which he explicitly stated that the United States government would win its "War on Terror" for the reasons stated in the book.

United States education and classical studies

Hanson co-authored the book ''Who Killed Homer?'' with John Heath. This book explores the issue of how classical education has declined in the US and what might be done to restore it to its former place. This is important, according to Hanson and Heath, because knowledge of the classical Greeks and Romans is necessary if we are to fully understand our own culture. To begin a discussion along these lines the authors state, "The answer to why the world is becoming Westernized goes all the way back to the wisdom of the Greeks—reason enough why we must not abandon the study of our heritage.

Hanson and Heath blame the academic classicists themselves for the decline, accusing them of becoming so infected with political correctness and postmodern thinking, not to mention egoism and money-grubbing (grants, visiting professorships, conference-hopping, promotion based on unreadable publications), that they have lost sight of what Hanson and Heath feel the classics truly represent. They say it this way, "the study of Greek in the last twenty years became a profession, a tiny world--but a world of sorts nonetheless--of jets, conferences, publicity, jargon, and perks."

Works

''Warfare and Agriculture in Classical Greece''. University of California Press, 1983. ISBN 0-520-21025-5

''The Western Way of War: Infantry Battle in Classical Greece''. Alfred A. Knopf, 1989. ISBN 0-394-57188-6

''Hoplites: The Classical Greek Battle Experience'', editor, Routledge, 1991. ISBN 0-415-04148-1

''The Other Greeks: The Family Farm and the Agrarian Roots of Western Civilization'', Free Press, 1995. ISBN 0-02-913751-9

''Fields Without Dreams: Defending the Agrarian Idea'', Free Press, 1996. ISBN 0-684-82299-7

''Who Killed Homer?: The Demise of Classical Education and the Recovery of Greek Wisdom'', with John Heath, Encounter Books, 2001. ISBN 1-893554-26-0

''The Soul of Battle: From Ancient Times to the Present Day, How Three Great Liberators Vanquished Tyranny'', Free Press, 1999. ISBN 0-684-84502-4

''The Wars of the Ancient Greeks: And the Invention of Western Military Culture'', Cassell, 1999. ISBN 0-304-35222-5

''The Land Was Everything: Letters from an American Farmer'', Free Press, 2000. ISBN 0-684-84501-6

''Bonfire of the Humanities: Rescuing the Classics in an Impoverished Age'', with John Heath and Bruce S. Thornton, ISI Books, 2001. ISBN 1-882926-54-4

''Carnage and Culture: Landmark Battles in the Rise of Western Power'', Doubleday, 2001. ISBN 0-385-50052-1

:Published in the UK as ''Why the West Has Won: Carnage and Culture from Salamis to Vietnam'', Faber, 2001. ISBN 0-571-20417-1

''An Autumn of War: What America Learned from September 11 and the War on Terrorism'', Anchor Books, 2002. ISBN 1-4000-3113-3

:A collection of essays, mostly from ''National Review'', covering events occurring between September 11, 2001 and January 2002

''Mexifornia: A State of Becoming'', Encounter Books, 2003. ISBN 1-893554-73-2

''Ripples of Battle: How Wars Fought Long Ago Still Determine How We Fight, How We Live, and How We Think'', Doubleday, 2003. ISBN 0-385-50400-4

''Between War and Peace: Lessons from Afghanistan and Iraq'', Random House, 2004. ISBN 0-8129-7273-2

:A collection of essays, mostly from ''National Review'', covering events occurring between January 2002 and July 2003

''A War Like No Other: How the Athenians and Spartans Fought the Peloponnesian War'', Random House, 2005. ISBN 1-4000-6095-8

''The Father of Us All: War and History, Ancient and Modern'', Bloomsbury Press, 2010. ISBN 9781608191659

References

External links

Official sites

Victor Davis Hanson's Private Papers — Hanson's website; carries columns and essays by Hanson and colleagues

Hanson's ''National Review'' articles — archive at ''National Review Online''

Works and Days — Hanson's blog at Pajamas Media

Educational institutions and think-tanks

Bio from Fresno State News

Hoover Institution bio

Claremont Institute bio

The Sage of Fresno by Jonathan Kay, a media fellow at the Hoover Institution

Association for the Study of the Middle East and Africa (ASMEA)

Opposing views

Torturing History — a review of ''Carnage And Culture'' by Chris Bray, who claims that Hanson rewrites history; see also Hanson's reply When Superpowers Lose — a review of ''Carnage and Culture'' from a socialist perspective Thucydides vs. Victor Davis Hanson — article by John Taylor, who questions Hanson's scholarship and intellectual rigor It's All Greek to Victor Davis Hanson — article by Gary Brecher, disputing Hanson's grasp of military history and command of logic

Interviews

Hardcore History — Hanson interviewed on Dan Carlin's "Hardcore History" podcast

Audio interview with Victor Davis Hanson

Notable short works

Introduction Hanson's intro to the 2007 edition of E.B. Sledge: ''With the Old Breed: At Peleliu and Okinawa''

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