The Portable Atheist: Essential Readings for the Nonbeliever

by Christopher Hitchens (Editor)

Other authorsChristopher Hitchens (Introduction)

Paperback, 2007

Status

Available

Call number

BL2747 .P64

Genres

Religion & Spirituality

Publication

Da Capo Press (2007), Edition: 1st, 499 pages

Description

Despite the mistaken use of the label "New Atheists," there is a lot of continuity over the past couple of centuries among atheist authors in their critiques of religion, theism, and superstition. Not every argument is identical, and even when the same basic argument is being offered there can be variety in how it is presented. This evolution of atheist critiques of supernatural religion is one of the virtues of Christopher Hitchens' book The Portable Atheist: Essential Readings for the Nonbeliever. Well known for his own atheist book God Is Not Great, Hitchens treads some very heavily-traveled ground here in editing a compendium of atheist writings. Do we really need yet another book of essays, isolated chapters, and other selections from atheists, agnostics, freethinkers and skeptics of the past? What could we get out of this latest offering that we didn't get from the past half dozen that we bought - or the others that we simply skipped? Those are good questions, and reasons why I was skeptical of Hitchens' book, but in the end I think he succeeds in making his book more than "just one more" collection of atheist essays.… (more)

User reviews

LibraryThing member MrLeo

A good collection of various irreverent, secular and sometimes outright anti-theistic writings. In terms of the years represented, it does jump around a bit between very old writings and then to a large focus on more recent selections, which perhaps makes sense, given the unfriendly attitude toward

anti-religious writing for a large section of history. The last (or at least one of the later) examples on Islam is a bit long winded, but overall, a very nice book to facilitate exploring the different viewpoints of rejecting religious faith. Atheism is atheism, but the various ways people can write on it differs tremendously.

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LibraryThing member psiloiordinary

A large collection and a very eclectic mix of essays. By turns slow steady, logical and suddenly emotionally charged and motivating.

A tour through histories writings on a natural view of the world and why we are here.

I particularly enjoyed the older writings which showed just how slow a burn

freedom of thought has been. David Hume is insightful, Mark Twain is funny, Thomas Hardy and HL Mencken bid farewell to God in two very different ways. Bertrand Russell is hilarious.

If you are an atheist then this book will give you some reasons for or at least perspectives on un-belief that you had not thought of. If you are a believer and want to remain so then pick up this book at the peril of your immortal soul.

Stimulating, challenging in places and enjoyable.

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LibraryThing member Michael_Rose

This is more the Hitch sharing with you his favorite readings than anything else, so you're not going to find too much his beloved writing style. I admit, I had to skim some of the earlier bits, but only because some ancient writings felt like such a heavy chore to me (perhaps they can be better

appreciated in their own language?) It's a good collection overall.

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LibraryThing member Devil_llama

A collection of essays by well-known (and some not so well-known) atheist, agnostics, and deists, all of them dealing with religion and its discontents. The essays are annotated by Christopher Hitchens. A good collection, but I wish Hitchens had contributed a bit more of his famous acerbic

personality.

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LibraryThing member Janine2011

An excellent collection of essays put together by the indomitable Hitchens. I will say though that some of them are very hard to read especially the Karl Marx one which i could not understand at all bu that's possibly due to me than karl marx!

LibraryThing member JeffV

In "God is Not Great", Hitchens gives ready ammunition for Atheists doing battle with the delusional. In The Portable Atheist. he provides documentation for these little sound bites, culled from some of the great minds in human history. Make no mistake: the odds of getting a your average religious

drone to read, much less comprehend the fairly dense material in this book is near zero, but it provides citable reference when necessary.

Hitchens calls on philosophers from throughout our history, political leaders, and even humorists such as Mark Twain. Omar Khayyam and Thomas Aquinas are cited, as are scientists ranging from Einstein to Copernicus. Many of the passages here are just plain difficult to read, encumbered with run-on sentences and flowery vocabulary. But as far as a selection of "Essential Readings", Hitchens does a fine job assembling texts that validate what we already know.

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LibraryThing member mcandre

Brilliant.

LibraryThing member jefware

A book to keep on your shelf and refer to whenever you find a nugget head that needs a pithy quote from a "wise" person.

LibraryThing member stuart10er

Interesting, but much, much, much too long. Also it is really only for the "faithful", if I can say that. There is no possible way any serious religious person would be able to trudge through this book and be "unconverted". It is just too dense, too cerebral, and too long. It isn't even accessible

enough to really be excerptable by persons wishing to use materials from it to shine the light of reason on our fellow men. Still. Many of the articles are very interesting.

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LibraryThing member KarenM61

This is a collection of essays about atheism. My favorites were the essays by George Sand and Emma Goldman. The intro by Hitchens was pretty great as well; I think it's the most calm, thoughtful writing I've seen from him.

LibraryThing member KarenM61

LibraryThing member jimocracy

There was some good information in here but overall, this book was drier and less profound than I was expecting.

LibraryThing member adam.currey

A collection of writings from many and varied sources, collated by Hitchens, each with an introductionary paragraph. Probably one best for picking at, rather than reading cover to cover.

LibraryThing member markm2315

A wide ranging collection of essays, poems and selections from larger works arranged chronologically, starting with a selection from Lucretius' De Rerum Natura and ending with part of Ayaan Hirsi Ali's How and why I became an Infidel. Even the seasoned atheist is likely to find something "new"

here: there is an excellent introduction by Chris Hitchens, a reminder that there is nothing new under the sun with the writings of Thomas Hobbes, Baruch Spinoza, David Hume and John Stuart Mill, a discussion of the TV evangelist equivalents of her time by Mary Ann Evans, the thoughts of Charles Darwin from his autobiography, the unusually vitriolic comments of Samuel Clemens, an entertaining list of Einstein's attempts to deny his belief in the supernatural (many wanted the "smartest man" to be religious), and more from Emma Goldman, Thomas Hardy, Joseph Conrad, Ian McEwan and Philip Larkin. I found Martin Gardner's history of the idea of the wandering Jew, Sam Harris' discussion of the persecution of witches and antisemitism and Ibn Warraq's discussion of the Koran and Sharia law to be unusually interesting. All the selections can't be equally strong, but my only negative comment would be that I had the opportunity to be reminded how extraordinarily opaque the writing of Karl Marx is.

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LibraryThing member dualmon

An academic collection; interesting but dry

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