Arguably

Christopher Hitchens (1949-2011) was a contributing editor to Vanity Fair and a columnist for Slate. He was the author of numerous books, including works on Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, George Orwell, Mother Teresa, Henry Kissinger and Bill and Hillary Clinton, as well as his international bestseller and National Book Award nominee, god Is Not Great. His memoir, Hitch-22, which was a Sunday Times bestseller, was nominated for the Orwell Prize and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. His last book, Mortality, was published in 2012 by Atlantic Books.

• 1: Gods of Our Fathers: The United States of Enlightenment 2: Enlightenment 3: The Private Jefferson 4: Jefferson Versus the Muslim Pirates 5: Benjamin Franklin: Free and Easy 6: John Brown: The Man Who Ended Slavery 7: Abraham Lincoln: Misery's Child 8: Mark Twain: American Radical 9: Upton Sinclair: A Capitalist Primer 10: JFK: In Sickness and by Stealth 11: Saul Bellow: The Great Assimilator 12: Vladimir Nabokov: Hurricane Lolita 13: John Updike, Part One: No Way 14: John Updike, Part Two: Mr. Geniality 15: Vidal Loco 16: America the Banana Republic 17: An Anglosphere Future 18: Political Animals 19: Old Enough to Die 20: In Defense of Foxhole Atheists 21: In Search of the Washington Novel 22: Isaac Newton: Flaws of Gravity 23: The Men Who Made England: Hilary Mantel's 24: Wolf Hall 25: Edmund Burke: Reactionary Prophet 26: Samuel Johnson: Demons and Dictionaries 27: Gustave Flaubert: I'm with Stupide 28: The Dark Side of Dickens 29: Marx's Journalism: The Grub Street Years 30: Rebecca West: Things Worth Fighting For 31: Ezra Pound: A Revolutionary Simpleton 32: On Animal Farm 33: Jessica Mitford's Poison Pen 34: W. Somerset Maugham: Poor Old Willie 35: Evelyn Waugh: The Permanent Adolescent 36: P. G. Wodehouse: The Honorable Schoolboy 37: Anthony Powell: An Omnivorous Curiosity 38: John Buchan: Spy Thriller's Father 39: Graham Greene: I'll Be Damned 40: Death from a Salesman: Graham Greene's Bottled Ontology 41: Bottled Ontology 42: Loving Philip Larkin 43: Stephen Spender: A Nice Bloody Fool 44: Edward Upward: The Captive Mind 45: C. L. R. James: Mid Off, Not Right On 46: J. G. Ballard: The Catastrophist 47: Fraser's Flashman: Scoundrel Time 48: Fleet Street's Finest: From Waugh to Frayn 49: Saki: Where the Wild Things Are 50: Harry Potter: The Boy Who Lived 51: Why Women Aren't Funny 52: Stieg Larsson: The Author Who Played 53: with Fire 54: As American as Apple Pie 55: So Many Men's Rooms, So Little Time 56: The New Commandments 57: In Your Face 58: Wine Drinkers of the World, Unite 59: Charles, Prince of Piffle 60: Afghanistan's Dangerous Bet 61: First, Silence the Whistle-Blower 62: Believe Me, It's Torture 63: Iran's Waiting Game 64: Long Live Democratic Seismology 65: Benazir Bhutto: Daughter of Destiny 66: From Abbottabad to Worse 67: The Perils of Partition 68: Algeria: A French Quarrel 69: The Case of Orientalism 70: Edward Said: Where the Twain Should Have Met 71: Have Met 72: The Swastika and the Cedar 73: Holiday in Iraq 74: Tunisia: At the Desert's Edge 75: What Happened to the Suicide Bombers 76: of Jerusalem? 77: Childhood's End: An African Nightmare 78: The Vietnam Syndrome 79: Once Upon a Time in Germany 80: Worse Than Nineteen Eighty-four 81: North Korea: A Nation of Racist Dwarves 82: The Eighteenth Brumaire of the Castro Dynasty 83: Hugo Boss 84: Is the Euro Doomed? 85: Overstating Jewish Power 86: The Case for Humanitarian Intervention 87: Victor Serge: Pictures from an Inquisition 88: André Malraux: One Man's Fate 89: Arthur Koestler: The Zealot 90: Isabel Allende: Chile Redux 91: The Persian Version 92: Martin Amis: Lightness at Midnight 93: Imagining Hitler 94: Victor Klemperer: Survivor 95: A War Worth Fighting 96: Just Give Peace a Chance? 97: W. G. Sebald: Requiem for Germany 98: When the King Saved God 99: Let Them Eat Pork Rinds 100: Stand Up for Denmark! 101: Eschew the Taboo 102: She's No Fundamentalist 103: Burned Out 104: Easter Charade 105: Don't Mince Words 106: History and Mystery 107: Words Matter 108: This Was Not Looting 109: The Other L-Word 110: The You Decade 111: Suck It Up 112: A Very, Very Dirty Word 113: Prisoner of Shelves

To say that, during the past three decades, the world would have been poorer, duller and altogether a smaller place without Hitchens and his writings would be to utter a cliché of the kind he despises. It would also be true.