The New Republic

Before 2013 begins, catch up on the best of 2012. From now until the New Year, we will be re-posting some of The New Republic’s most thought-provoking pieces of the year. Enjoy. Lionel Asbo: State of England By Martin Amis (Knopf, 255 pp., $25.95) READ MORE >>

Editor’s Note: We’ll be running the article recommendations of our friends at TNR Reader each afternoon on The Plank, just in time to print out or save for your commute home. Enjoy! George Orwell, argues Christopher Hitchens, was a man who constantly wrestled with his own shortcomings and prejudices. That struggle helped make him one of the century's greatest writers. READ MORE >>

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[Guest post by Nathan Pippenger] If you somehow haven’t seen the video of campus security officers pepper-spraying the students at UC Davis’s Occupy protest, watch it now: READ MORE >>

 -- Some more highlights from Alan Krueger's academic career. -- Christopher Hitchens asks: "Does the Texas governor believe his idiotic religious rhetoric, or is he just pandering for votes?" I ask: why not both? READ MORE >>

Christopher Hitchens deftly skewers David Mamet, the playwright who has converted to the Republican Party with the fervency of, well a convert: READ MORE >>

There must be something about hitting the end of a campaign cycle: two writers, David Brooks and Christopher Hitchens, both wrote despairing items this week about, well, as Slate subtitled the Hitchens piece: “What normal person would put up with the inane indignities of the electoral process?” Here’s Brooks: READ MORE >>

Christopher Hitchens writes: READ MORE >>

I met Christopher Hitchens at a party nearly three decades ago, shortly after he arrived in the states. The late (and very much missed) Eric Breindel and I were going out to Chinese dinner in a restaurant some place on Third Avenue in the fifties. Somehow, we invited Chris or maybe he invited himself. He was funny. But that was not enough for me. I didn't like his left-wing politics...and, frankly, I didn't like his later right-wing politics either. READ MORE >>