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The Monarchy
The Monarchy
Dec 1, 2025 5:00 AM

Author:Christopher Hitchens

The Monarchy

As the Duke and Duchess of Sussex bring renewed focus to the monarchy, now is the perfect time to re-examine Christopher Hitchens’s powerful polemic.

In this scathing essay, Christopher Hitchens looks at the relationship of the press and the public to the royal family, unpacking the tautology and contradictory arguments that prop it up. In his inimitable style, Hitchens argues that our desire not to profane or disturb the monarchy is a failure of reason and a confusion of reality. Fealty to the magic of monarchy stops us looking objectively at our own history and hinders open-minded criticism of our present. It is time we outgrew it.

With the recent birth of royal baby Archie, during a time of austerity and national inequality, Hitchens’s 10,000-word critique is even more relevant today than when it was first published in 1990.

'Christopher is one of the most terrifying rhetoricians that the world has yet seen' Martin Amis

Reviews

Maybe our generation has found its Don Delillo

—— Bret Easton Ellis

This is a wild ride of a novel

—— Booklist

A clever, comical pell-mell through gender politics and stereotyped expectations, to explore the extremes of will-power, and of living as one wishes

—— John Lloyd , thebookbag.co.uk

Readers can either disregard the author and read it in the conventional way or follow his instructions and jump to the chapter you are told. The thrill of defiance in the former almost matches the same show-like excitement of the latter – both are exhilarating and rewarding options

—— Antonia Charlesworth , Big Issue

Twelve years on, Palahniuk revisits this work – mashing up its linear narrative to recreate the pre-Internet thrill of flicking through Vogue or the Sears catalogue

—— Emma Hagestadt , Independent

With its nonlinear format and instructions to jump from one chapter to another, this book might appear to be style over substance, but that’s the point: if you don’t want to look beyond the style, whether its ugly or beautiful, you’ll never find out what’s beneath

—— Claire Looby , Irish Times
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