He is erudite and well spoken. He is also a drunken arse. So it is always enjoyable to have the opportunity to watch someone pick him apart. Hence I heartily recommend John Barrell's review of Mr. Hitchen's latest book, a biography of Tom Paine, in the London Review of Books.
Do read the whole thing but here are a few snippets to get you started:
Do read the whole thing but here are a few snippets to get you started:
"But compared with any other book on Paine I can think of, this one is casual, even perfunctory. Long before I reached the end of what is a very long short book, I was at a loss to know why it had been written."
"...this book, which reads like the work of a tired man. Too tired, to begin with, to check his facts."
"Hitchens’s casual attitude to facts is not compensated for by a corresponding precision with ideas, or any concern for the range, the richness, the complexity of Paine’s thinking."
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