Contributors to the Atlantic Monthly celebrated the 150th anniversary of the magazine with selected readings from an edited anthology, The American Idea: The Best of The Atlantic Monthly, published by Doubleday. The editor of the anthology, Robert Vare, talked about the history of the magazine and introduced the participants. Christopher Hitchens read about Saul Bellow, Mark Bowden read about Saddam Hussein, James Fallows read about the occupation of Iraq, and William Langewiesche read about the World Trade Center.

Christopher Hitchens is the author of God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, published by Twelve. Mark Bowden is the author of Road Work: Among Tyrants, Heroes, Rogues, and Beasts, published by Penguin. James Fallows is the author of Blind Into Baghdad: America’s War in Iraq, published by Vintage. William Langewiesche is the author of The Atomic Bazaar: The Rise of the Nuclear Poor, published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. 


The program contains language that some may find offensive.