Christopher Hitchens, provocateur and contrarian on the Left, makes the news as often as he reports it, and writes about the most controversial news and current events. Christopher Caldwell is a fresh and objective columnist in the opposite camp. Together, they present the best writing from opposite corners of the political ring at the end of the last century. These incisive observers examine each other's choices and discuss in separate introductions just what they think of the picks. "Hitchens has made a career of disagreement and dissent, of being a thorn in search of a side." -- Publishers Weekly "[Hitchens] is an irritable, irreverent, sarcastic, witty, and intelligent champion of the Left." -- Library Journal As television has contributed to the decline in the traditional role of political parties, the broadcast media have gained an advantage over print. Politics is now "talking heads" entertainment with questionable standards. This collection, edited by journalists Caldwell (the Weekly Standard and New York Press) and Hitchens (Vanity Fair and the Nation), brings together three dozen reprinted articles (primarily from the Nation, the Progressive, the Weekly Standard, and National Review) by a variety of skillful writers (journalists, novelists, professors, etc.), such as Nat Hentoff, Tony Kushner, Susan Sontag, Benjamin DeMott, Arundhati Roy, Patrick Caddell, Jonathan Schell, Andrew Sullivan, David Frum, Harvey Mansfield, David Brooks, and Jonathan Rauch. The topics, mostly associated with the political wars of the 1990s, are equally diverse, ranging from personalities (Elian Gonzalez, Monica Lewinsky, Dorothy Day, and Bill Clinton) to issues such as impeachment, civil liberties, mass protests, nuclear weapons, Bosnia, feminism, the Bell Curve, and more. Though the writing is high quality, the brief introductions are weak. Supplied with the twist that Caldwell surveys the liberal articles and Hitchens the conservative ones, they fail to explain the purpose of the collection. In a time of tight library budgets, this is an optional purchase. William D. Pederson, Louisiana State Univ., Shreveport Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc. "Good bedside reading, with pieces that are short and digestible." -- Kirkus Reviews, September 15, 2002 Christopher Hitchens is a contributing editor to Vanity Fair . His numerous books include Letters to a Young Contrarian and Why Orwell Matters . Paperback with cartoon on front cover. 401 pages