From his epic takedown of Henry Kissinger to his petty crime spree in Bloomberg’s New York, The Daily Beast picks just a few highlights from Christopher Hitchens’s prolific career
Hitchens’s sprawling takedown of Nixon’s secretary of state appeared in two installments in Harpers, making the definitive case that Kissinger is a war criminal.
When Iran’s Ayatollah Khameini issued a fatwa on novelist Salman Rushdie for The Satanic Verses, it was the opening shot in a war on cultural freedom. Two decades later, the violence continues, and Muslim fundamentalists have gained a new advantage: media self-censorship.
Fellatio has a long and storied history, but not until 1972—with the release of Deep Throat—did it come out, so to speak, in polite company. From the Wild West to the Wild White House, Hitchens explores the blowjob’s emergence as the nation’s signature sex act.
What more can be added to the debate over U.S. interrogation methods, and whether waterboarding is torture? Try firsthand experience. The author undergoes the controversial drowning technique, at the hands of men who once trained American soldiers to resist—not inflict—it.
To protest the petty ordinances of Mayor Bloomberg’s New York, Hitchens went on a one-man crime spree: taking his feet off his bike pedals, feeding pigeons, and sitting on a milk crate, among other offenses. Why are the people of America’s most cosmopolitan city being treated like backward children?
There's an entire micro-economy based on the pursuit of betterment. Hitchens—58, full-figured, and ferocious in his consumption of cigarettes and Scotch—agreed to test its limits, starting with the Executive De-Stress Treatment at a high-end spa.
Reviewing familiar principles and maxims in the face of mortal illness, Hitchens found one of them increasingly ridiculous: “Whatever doesn’t kill me makes me stronger.” Oh, really?
