The betrayal of dissent

Beyond Orwell, Hitchens and the New American Century, Scott Lucas, Pluto Press, 324 pages, paperback, £10.99

Over the period of the war in Iraq, journalist Christopher Hitchens and others have claimed the mantle of writer George Orwell in their support for the war, arguing that the nature of Saddam Hussein's regime justified the US invasion. In doing so they claim Orwell as someone who stood up for all that is "honourable" on the left.

Lucas challenges this interpretation of Orwell and proposes an entirely different interpretation of him as "policeman of the left". And he says that Orwell's intellectual heirs, including Hitchens and other pro-war journalists, are playing a key role as apologists for the neo-conservatives in Washington.

Lucas does a thorough job in collecting Hitchens' writings to make his case. But for many who opposed the war, Orwell is a more nuanced and complex figure than the polarised views of either Hitchens or Lucas, and this is the key weakness of the book.