ISBN10: 1455502774, ISBN13: 9781455502776, [publisher: New York City, NY: Twelve/Hachette Book Group, 2011] Hardcover First Edition 1st Printing. 795 pages. Published in 2011. Massive retrospective collection of essays. The summing-up of Christopher Hitchens' stupendous achievement as an essayist and polemicist. The First Hardcover Edition. Precedes and should not be confused with all other subsequent editions. Published in a small and limited first print run as a hardcover original only. The First Edition is now scarce. Presents Christopher Hitchens' "Arguably". For the sake of argument - and his bequest to posterity. "For nearly four decades, Hitchens has been telling us, in pitch-perfect prose, what we confront when we grapple with first principles - the principles of reason, tolerance, and skepticism that define and inform the foundations of our civilization - principles that, to endure, must be defended anew by every generation. His knowledge is formidable, an encyclopedic treasure, and yet one has the feeling, reading him, of hearing a person thinking out loud, following the inexorable logic of his thought, wherever it might lead, unafraid to expose fraudulence, denounce injustice, and excoriate hypocrisy. Readers, admirers and detractors alike, have learned to read Hitchens with something approaching awe at the oxygen in every sentence, the enviable wit, and his readiness - even eagerness - to fight a foe. What emerges from this ...