SOURCE: Wheatcroft, Geoffrey. “Comrades, Leave Me Here a Little.” Spectator (3 March 2001): 40–42.

In the following review of Unacknowledged Legislation, Wheatcroft praises Hitchens as “an outstanding critic,” but finds shortcomings in his “overbearing” style and tendentious claims.

When Humbert III sold his principality of the Dauphiné to Philip of Valois in 1349, he made a condition that the eldest son of the king of France should henceforth be known as the Dauphin. Not many people knew that—and nor did Humbert know where it would all end. On the back of the jacket of this book (around the corner from a snapshot of the author even older than the one I use) we read this from Gore Vidal: ‘I have been asked whether I wish to nominate a successor, an inheritor, a dauphin or delfino. I have decided to name Christopher Hitchens.’ That whole glorious utterance is unimprovable, but ‘or delfino...