Letters to a Young Contrarian
E156069
Letters to a Young Contrarian is a book by Christopher Hitchens that offers guidance on independent thinking, skepticism, and principled dissent through a series of reflective essays.
All labels observed (1)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| Letters to a Young Contrarian canonical | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T1353924 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Letters to a Young Contrarian Context triple: [Christopher Hitchens, notableWork, Letters to a Young Contrarian]
-
A.
The Assault on Reason
The Assault on Reason is a political book by former U.S. Vice President Al Gore that critiques the erosion of rational public discourse in American democracy, particularly in the media and politics.
-
B.
The Book of Right-On
"The Book of Right-On" is a song by Joanna Newsom, known for its intricate harp accompaniment and idiosyncratic, poetic lyrics.
-
C.
The Baffler
The Baffler is a left-leaning American magazine and journal of cultural and political criticism known for its sharp, contrarian essays on capitalism, media, and contemporary culture.
-
D.
Twenty Letters to a Friend
"Twenty Letters to a Friend" is a memoir by Svetlana Alliluyeva, Joseph Stalin’s daughter, in which she reflects on her life inside the Soviet elite and her complex relationship with her father.
-
E.
Conservatives Without Conscience
Conservatives Without Conscience is a political book by former Nixon White House counsel John Dean that critiques the modern conservative movement’s ethical and authoritarian tendencies.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Letters to a Young Contrarian Target entity description: Letters to a Young Contrarian is a book by Christopher Hitchens that offers guidance on independent thinking, skepticism, and principled dissent through a series of reflective essays.
-
A.
The Assault on Reason
The Assault on Reason is a political book by former U.S. Vice President Al Gore that critiques the erosion of rational public discourse in American democracy, particularly in the media and politics.
-
B.
The Book of Right-On
"The Book of Right-On" is a song by Joanna Newsom, known for its intricate harp accompaniment and idiosyncratic, poetic lyrics.
-
C.
The Baffler
The Baffler is a left-leaning American magazine and journal of cultural and political criticism known for its sharp, contrarian essays on capitalism, media, and contemporary culture.
-
D.
Twenty Letters to a Friend
"Twenty Letters to a Friend" is a memoir by Svetlana Alliluyeva, Joseph Stalin’s daughter, in which she reflects on her life inside the Soviet elite and her complex relationship with her father.
-
E.
Conservatives Without Conscience
Conservatives Without Conscience is a political book by former Nixon White House counsel John Dean that critiques the modern conservative movement’s ethical and authoritarian tendencies.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (48)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf | book ⓘ |
| author | Christopher Hitchens ⓘ |
| countryOfOrigin | United Kingdom ⓘ |
| genre |
essay collection
ⓘ
non-fiction ⓘ |
| hasPerspective | contrarianism ⓘ |
| hasTheme |
anti-authoritarianism
ⓘ
anti-totalitarianism ⓘ civil disobedience ⓘ courage in public debate ⓘ critical inquiry ⓘ critique of dogma ⓘ critique of organized religion ⓘ ethics of disagreement ⓘ ethics of persuasion ⓘ free speech ⓘ freedom of thought ⓘ importance of questioning consensus ⓘ individual conscience ⓘ intellectual honesty ⓘ moral courage ⓘ philosophical skepticism ⓘ political engagement ⓘ resistance to conformity ⓘ responsibility of the dissenter ⓘ role of the public intellectual ⓘ secular humanism ⓘ solidarity with the oppressed ⓘ |
| intendedAudience |
aspiring writers
ⓘ
politically engaged readers ⓘ young intellectuals ⓘ |
| language | English ⓘ |
| literaryForm | letters ⓘ |
| mainSubject |
atheism
ⓘ
dissent ⓘ independent thinking ⓘ intellectual independence ⓘ political criticism ⓘ skepticism ⓘ |
| mediaType |
hardcover
ⓘ
paperback ⓘ print ⓘ |
| notableIdea |
duty to dissent
ⓘ
moral responsibility of the intellectual ⓘ value of skepticism toward authority ⓘ |
| originalPublisher | Basic Books ⓘ |
| publicationYear | 2001 ⓘ |
| structure | series of reflective essays ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: Letters to a Young Contrarian Description of subject: Letters to a Young Contrarian is a book by Christopher Hitchens that offers guidance on independent thinking, skepticism, and principled dissent through a series of reflective essays.
Referenced by (1)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.