Author Guide · Essays & Polemic
Books Written by
In the summer of 2010, partway through the American tour for his memoir Hitch-22, Christopher Hitchens was diagnosed with oesophageal cancer. He kept writing: the columns he filed for Vanity Fair over the next eighteen months became Mortality, published after his death in December 2011. Born in Portsmouth in 1949, he wrote for the New Statesman in London, moved to the United States in 1981 to write for The Nation, and joined Vanity Fair in 1992. His books are mostly arguments against someone: Mother Teresa, Bill Clinton, Henry Kissinger and, in God Is Not Great (2007), religion itself. Alongside them run short books on the writers and thinkers he admired, Orwell, Jefferson and Paine. This guide covers his 11 key books, in order, and where to begin.
By Lisanne Swart · 11 key books · 1995–2012 · Updated October 2026
ClickTap a spine to jump to that book below.
Quick answer
Christopher Hitchens’s best-known book is God Is Not Great (2007), a #1 New York Times bestseller and National Book Award finalist. The others most read are The Trial of Henry Kissinger (2001), Hitch-22 (2010), his memoir, and Mortality (2012). Start with Arguably (2011), 107 essays that show the full range of what he wrote about, from Orwell to Iraq.
Where to Start with Christopher Hitchens
If you want the full range in one volume
→ Arguably (2011) — 107 essays from his last decade.
If you want his case against religion
→ God Is Not Great (2007) — the 2007 bestseller.
If you want the man himself
→ Hitch-22 (2010) — the memoir, from Portsmouth to Washington.
If you want him writing about a writer
→ Why Orwell Matters (2002) — his defence of George Orwell.
11 Christopher Hitchens Books, in Order
The Missionary Position
A short attack on Mother Teresa of Calcutta that grew out of Hell’s Angel, the 1994 Channel 4 documentary Hitchens wrote with Tariq Ali and presented. He argues that she encouraged the poor to accept suffering, that her homes for the dying gave substandard care, and that she took money from donors such as Jean-Claude Duvalier and the financier Charles Keating.
No One Left to Lie To
Published by Verso during the last years of the Clinton presidency, it argues that Bill Clinton’s corruption and his conservatism reinforced each other. Hitchens goes through Clinton’s record in war, the accusations of sexual misconduct against him and his strategy of “triangulation”, and attacks the liberals who defended him. An expanded paperback followed in 2000.
The Trial of Henry Kissinger
Hitchens sets out the case that Henry Kissinger, Nixon’s national security adviser and secretary of state, should be prosecuted for war crimes, from the secret bombing of Cambodia and the Vietnam peace talks to the overthrow of Chile’s elected government. Eugene Jarecki’s documentary The Trials of Henry Kissinger (2002) is based on the book.
Letters to a Young Contrarian
A short book in Basic Books’ Art of Mentoring series, written as letters to an imagined “My Dear X” and prompted by his students at The New School. It is about what it takes to be a dissident: argument, humour, distrust of euphemism, with Zola, Rosa Parks, Orwell and Václav Havel as examples.
Why Orwell Matters
Published in Britain as Orwell’s Victory. Hitchens argues that George Orwell was right about the three great questions of his time, imperialism, fascism and Stalinism, and answers Orwell’s critics on the left, including Raymond Williams. He also resists the attempts of American conservatives to claim Orwell as one of their own.
Thomas Jefferson
A 188-page life of the third American president and principal author of the Declaration of Independence, written for HarperCollins’ Eminent Lives series of short biographies. Kirkus Reviews called it “a lucid, gently critical view” of Jefferson.
Thomas Paine’s Rights of Man
Hitchens’s volume in the Books That Changed the World series: the story of Paine’s 1791 Rights of Man, written in reply to Edmund Burke’s attack on the French Revolution, and of the argument between the two men. Reviews were mixed; the historian John Barrell called it “casual, even perfunctory” in the London Review of Books.
God Is Not Great
His case against religion: that it is man-made, that it distorts our place in the universe and does harm, from sexual repression to violence, and that a secular life based on science and reason is better. It reached #1 on the New York Times bestseller list and was a National Book Award finalist. The British edition is subtitled The Case Against Religion.
Hitch-22
His memoir runs from a childhood as the son of a naval officer, “the Commander”, through his mother’s death in Athens when he was 24, Oxford and the Trotskyist left, to his friendships with Martin Amis, James Fenton, Edward Said and Salman Rushdie, and his support for the Iraq war. It was shortlisted for the National Book Critics Circle Award for autobiography. He was diagnosed with cancer while on tour for it.
Arguably
107 essays from The Atlantic, Slate, Vanity Fair and other publications, on politics, literature and travel, including introductions he wrote for new editions of Animal Farm and Our Man in Havana. It was published in September 2011, three months before his death, and named one of the New York Times’s 10 best books of the year. The British edition is Arguably: Selected Prose.
Mortality
Published after his death: the seven essays he wrote for Vanity Fair about his oesophageal cancer, on chemotherapy, on Nietzsche’s maxim that what does not kill you makes you stronger and on his fear of losing his voice, plus a chapter of unfinished fragments. It has a foreword by his editor Graydon Carter and an afterword by his widow, Carol Blue.
In What Order to Read Christopher Hitchens
None of his books depends on another, so you can read by subject. Publication order does show a shift, though: the 1990s books are attacks on the powerful, the books of the 2000s turn to the people he admired and to religion, and the last two are about himself.
If you are unsure, start with an essay collection rather than a polemic: Arguably shows the range, and the targets of the single-subject books make more sense once you know how he argues. Read Hitch-22 before Mortality; the second reads as a coda to the first.
A reading path
1. Arguably (2011)
2. Why Orwell Matters (2002)
3. God Is Not Great (2007)
4. Hitch-22 (2010)
5. Mortality (2012)
Everything Else Christopher Hitchens Published
Beyond the 11 key books: 12 more, grouped by kind.
Open a group with the + to see every book in it.
Early books
4
4 books · 1984–1990
- 1984Cypruson the island’s division; revised as Hostage to History (1989)
- 1987Imperial Spoils: The Curious Case of the Elgin Marblesthe case for returning the marbles to Greece
- 1990Blood, Class, and Nostalgia: Anglo-American IroniesBritain and America; reissued as Blood, Class and Empire (2004)
- 1990The Monarchy: A Critique of Britain’s Favourite Fetisha short republican pamphlet
Essay collections
6
6 books · 1988–2021
- 1988Prepared for the Worstselected essays and minority reports
- 1993For the Sake of Argumentessays and minority reports
- 2000Unacknowledged Legislationon writers in the public sphere
- 2004Love, Poverty, and Warjourneys and essays
- 2015And Yet…essays published after his death
- 2021A Hitch in Timehis writing for the London Review of Books
Other books
2
2 books · 2003–2007
- 2003A Long Short War: The Postponed Liberation of Iraqhis columns on the run-up to the Iraq war
- 2007The Portable Atheistan anthology he edited and introduced
The years · 1949–2011
Quick facts about Christopher Hitchens
- Known for
- Christopher Hitchens is known as a polemicist and essayist who argued against religion, Mother Teresa, Henry Kissinger and Bill Clinton, and as one of the “Four Horsemen” of New Atheism.
- 1949
- Born in Portsmouth, England
- 1981
- Moves to the US to write for The Nation
- 1992
- Joins Vanity Fair
- 2007
- God Is Not Great
- 2011
- Dies in Houston, Texas, aged 62
- Born
- 13 April 1949, Portsmouth, England
- Died
- 15 December 2011, Houston, Texas, of complications from oesophageal cancer
- Education
- Balliol College, Oxford (philosophy, politics and economics, 1970)
- Worked
- New Statesman; The Nation (1981–2002); Vanity Fair from 1992; Slate
- Citizenship
- British; also American from 2007
- Married
- Eleni Meleagrou (1981); Carol Blue (1991)
- Honours
- Lannan Literary Award for Nonfiction (1991); National Magazine Awards (2007, 2011)
The red mark is 2007: God Is Not Great, his #1 bestseller against religion.
How Christopher Hitchens Writes: The Case for the Prosecution
Most of his books are built like a prosecutor’s brief. The Trial of Henry Kissinger is laid out as a set of charges, The Missionary Position and No One Left to Lie To pile up documents and testimony against a single person, and God Is Not Great takes religions one claim at a time.
He was first of all a columnist, writing to deadline for The Nation, Vanity Fair and Slate for three decades, and the essay collections hold as much of his work as the books. Arguably alone collects 107 pieces, and a good share of it is book reviews and introductions to other people’s novels, from Graham Greene to P. G. Wodehouse, which he wrote for Penguin Classics and others. The polemics and the literary essays use the same method: quote the subject accurately, then turn the quotation against it.
His model was George Orwell, the subject of Why Orwell Matters: a man of the left who would attack the left, and who distrusted euphemism above all. Hitchens applied the same test to his own side, which is how he ended up supporting the Iraq war against most of his former allies. For writers in the same line, see Authors like George Orwell.
Watch
Christopher Hitchens on Hitch-22
Hitchens talks about Hitch-22, his memoir, on C-SPAN’s Book TV in 2010, the year it was published.
Frequently asked questions about Christopher Hitchens’s books
How many books has Christopher Hitchens written?
About 25 under his own name, counting essay collections, plus co-written books, debates and anthologies he edited. Eleven are the key books on this page, from The Missionary Position (1995) to Mortality (2012); the rest are listed below them.
What are Christopher Hitchens’s books in order?
The Missionary Position (1995), No One Left to Lie To (1999), The Trial of Henry Kissinger (2001), Letters to a Young Contrarian (2001), Why Orwell Matters (2002), Thomas Jefferson: Author of America (2005), Thomas Paine’s Rights of Man (2006), God Is Not Great (2007), Hitch-22 (2010), Arguably (2011) and Mortality (2012).
Where should I start with Christopher Hitchens?
Arguably (2011), 107 essays on politics, literature and travel, which shows the full range of his work. If you want one sustained argument instead, read God Is Not Great; if you want the man, read Hitch-22.
What is Christopher Hitchens’s most famous book?
God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything (2007). It reached #1 on the New York Times bestseller list, was a National Book Award finalist, and made him one of the “Four Horsemen” of New Atheism, with Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris and Daniel Dennett.
Why did Christopher Hitchens support the Iraq war?
He strongly backed the 2003 invasion, which put him at odds with much of the left he had belonged to. He left The Nation in 2002 after disagreements over the coming war. Some critics called him a neoconservative; he rejected the label. In Hitch-22 he writes about the death in Mosul in 2007 of Mark Daily, a young American soldier who had cited Hitchens’s writing among his reasons for enlisting.
What did Christopher Hitchens say about Mother Teresa?
In the Channel 4 documentary Hell’s Angel (1994) and the book The Missionary Position (1995) he argued that she encouraged the poor to accept their suffering, that her homes for the dying gave poor care, and that she accepted money from donors such as Jean-Claude Duvalier of Haiti and the financier Charles Keating.
What is Hitchens’s razor?
The line “What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence,” from God Is Not Great (2007): the person making a claim has to prove it, and a claim without evidence needs no refutation.
Is Christopher Hitchens still alive?
No. He was diagnosed with oesophageal cancer in 2010, during the tour for Hitch-22, and died on 15 December 2011 in Houston, Texas, aged 62. His essays about the illness were published after his death as Mortality (2012).
Is Christopher Hitchens related to Peter Hitchens?
Yes. The columnist Peter Hitchens is his younger brother. Peter became a Christian and a conservative, and the brothers argued in public about religion; Peter’s book The Rage Against God (2010) is partly a reply to Christopher’s atheism. Peter appears in Hitch-22.
Did Christopher Hitchens win any prizes for his books?
None of his books won a major book prize, but God Is Not Great was a National Book Award finalist in 2007 and Hitch-22 was shortlisted for the National Book Critics Circle Award for autobiography. He won the Lannan Literary Award for Nonfiction in 1991 and National Magazine Awards for his Vanity Fair columns in 2007 and 2011.
Footnotes
- Christopher Hitchens — Wikipedia
- Christopher Hitchens bibliography — Wikipedia
- God Is Not Great — Hachette Book Group
- Hell’s Angel (TV programme) — Wikipedia
- It’s been a lot of fun — David Runciman on Hitch-22, London Review of Books, 2010
- Mortality (book) — Wikipedia
Bibliography last verified 9 October 2026. Where sources give different first-publication years, this page uses the year in library catalogues or the publisher’s own record.
This list was not put together by a machine.
The notes are all mine,
and the books are all his.
Lisanne x
Written by Lisanne Swart, who has curated reading lists and author guides at lisanneswart.com since 2021.
See more on her personal bookshelf.
“What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence.”
— Christopher Hitchens, God Is Not Great (2007)
If this shelf interested you, the full bookshelf has more: reading lists by theme, author guides, and notes on what is actually worth your time.
Browse the full bookshelf Get book recommendations