Hitchens is an English-American, born April 13, 1949. His books — the latest being God Is Not Great — have made him a prominent public intellectual, and a staple of talk shows and lecture circuits. He has been a columnist

As a political activist and observer, polemicist and self styled political radicalist, Hitchens rose to prominence as a fixture in the left-wing publications of both his native United Kingdom and United States. Hitchens’ departure from the political left began in 1989 after what he called the “tepid reaction” of the European left following Ayatollah Khomeini’s issue of a fatwa calling for the murder of Salman Rushdie. The September 11, 2001 attacks strengthened his embrace of an interventionist foreign policy, and his vociferous criticism of what he calls “fascism with an Islamic face.” Hitchens’ adoption of interventionist foreign policy, employment of the term “Islamofascist” and his notable support for the Iraq War have caused his critics to label him a “neoconservative.” Hitchens, however, refuses to embrace this designation, insisting, “I’m not any kind of conservative”.

Hitchens is often regarded as one of the most prominent exponents of modern atheism and is described as part of the “new atheism” movement. Hitchens and fellow atheists Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris and Daniel Dennett have often been referred to as “The Four Horsemen.” He is a secular humanist and anti-theist, and describes himself as a believer in the philosophical values of the Age of Enlightenment. His main argument is that since the concept of God or a supreme being is a totalitarian belief that destroys individual freedom, free expression and scientific discovery should replace religion as a means of teaching ethics and defining human civilization.

Hitchens is known for his ardent admiration of George Orwell, Thomas Paine, and Thomas Jefferson, and also for his excoriating critiques of Mother Teresa, Bill and Hillary Clinton, and Henry Kissinger, amongst others. These views, along with his argumentative and confrontational style of debate and writing, have gained him both praise and derision. 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 U.S. media.” The same article noted, though, that he would “likely be aghast to find himself on this list” because it demotes his self-styled radicalism to mere liberalism.

Retaining his British citizenship, Hitchens became a United States citizen on the steps of the Jefferson Memorial, on his fifty-eighth birthday, April 13, 2007, exactly 264 years after Jefferson’s own birth. In September 2008, he was made a media fellow at the Hoover Institution, and is currently writing his memoirs, entitled Hitch-22 Some Confessions and Contradictions: A Memoir, due for publication in the spring of 2010. He currently resides in Washington, D.C. [ MORE FROM WIKIPEDIA ]