Letters to a Young Contrarian Author:Christopher Hitchens This collection of essays, written in the form of letters to a fictitious student, explains Hitchenens's positions on an array of political and social issues, touching on religion ("The indispensable condition of any intellectual liberty is the realization that there is no such thing as the word of god"), morality ("Learn to recognize and avoid ... more »the symptoms of the zealot and the person who knows that he is right"), government ("I do not grant even my 'elected' leaders the power of life and death over myself"), and more« less