Political and Cultural Perceptions of George Orwell

Ian Williams is Assistant Professor at Bard College Center for Global & International Affairs, USA. He is author of six other books on politics and history and speaks on international affairs and American foreign policy at venues and on media across the world.

Introduction: Orwell: Good or Ungood?.......................................................................................... 2



Section 1......................................................................................................................................... 9



Chapter I     In Defense of Comrade Psmith: the Orwellian treatment of Orwell............................... 9



Chapter II The Orwellian Method.................................................................................................. 21



Chapter III Orwell the Socialist...................................................................................................... 25



Chapter IV Tangential Criticisms................................................................................................... 34



Conclusion................................................................................................................................ 35



Section 2 -In Memoriam- retrospective views.......................................................................... 38



Chapter V   Orwell's Own Airstrip One in 2014............................................................................... 38



Chapter VI  The Persistence of Pessimism, Oceania 20 years after Nineteen Eighty-Four............... 42



Chapter VII Afterlife of An Atheist................................................................................................ 46



Section 3 Beyond the Telescreen – Snitching, Snooping and Surveillance............................ 62



Chapter VIII No bother about Big Brother...................................................................................... 62



Chapter IX  Alexander Cockburn and "Snitching"........................................................................... 67



Chapter X The List......................................................................................................................... 73



"The List".................................................................................................................................. 77



Section 4 What Is Left?................................................................................................................ 82



Chapter XI Disabusing Idiocy? Orwell & the Left............................................................................ 82



Chapter XII  Orwell and the Democratic Left.................................................................................. 84



Chapter XIII Striking Back at the Empire......................................................................................... 90



Interlude..................................................................................................................................... 106



Chapter XIV  Revolution Is No Tea Party but It's Easier in a Salon: Reading the Leaves Afterwards 106



Chapter XV Orwell and the Left in the United States –the Under-reported side of Oceania!........ 114



Chapter XVI Letters to Oceania?.................................................................................................. 139



Chapter XVII Irving Howe, Orwell’s Prophet in the USA............................................................... 143



Section 6  Cover Bards – Hitchens the Orwell Emulator And His Detractors............................. 158



Chapter XVIII Orwell's Lives........................................................................................................ 158



Chapter XIX Why Hitchens Matters............................................................................................. 164



Chapter XX Christopher Hitchens and Orwell.............................................................................. 171



Chapter XXI Antithesis Incarnate: Christopher Hitchens, A Retrospective Glance......................... 173



Chapter XXII Hitchens and the Iraq War....................................................................................... 183



Chapter XXIII Truth in Journalism................................................................................................ 190



Selected Bibliography................................................................................................................ 194



Notes............................................................................................................................................... 2