His own contribution to an innovative series of "book biographies" traces the development of Thomas Paine's Rights of Man. It's a marriage made in literary heaven. As one of the 10 volumes it's a perfect blend of subject and enthusiast, with the anti-authoritarian enlightenment radical being eulogised by his 21st century counterpart.

Other books in the series include Darwin biographer Janet Browne's look at Darwin's Origin of Species, and philosopher Simon Blackburn's examination of Plato's Republic. The cynic might say that these books are cashing in on that awful glib fascination middlebrow commentators have with lists. But regardless of intention this series shows an all too rare quality; that of seeking to promote erudition and learning in a society where being literate and inquisitive, and expressing these qualities in print, is rarer still.

Thankfully this series is the perfect antidote to the idea of the list. The list which has dominated cultural discourse for far too long. The list which is the most basic tool of the sham critic, the person who will reel off a "best of" in a kind of sub-literate Q magazine fashion, skimming over the surface of their subject without really exploring it, while throwing out a quote here and there as a pretence to real knowledge. Instead this series is exploratory, and sources the power of these books in a lucid and provocative fashion. Each in their own way is the equivalent of a particularly learned and enthusiastic teacher taking you down a long overgrown path . . . although there is one unfortunate blot on the horizon, with the contribution of the crown prince of smugness himself; the insufferable PJ O' Rourke, writing about Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations.

The series also raises the question as to the function of such an exercise, and on a basic level it has to be admitted that this is most definitely one grand marketing tool, the kind of "synergistic" venture dreamt up by an overactive marketing executive. One only has to look at the bedraggled looking Hitchens, and then notice that none of the other books in the series have their author's face on the cover.

Who better to have on the front of one of your latest books than the current bete noire of bete noires? A millionbook selling agent provocateur, with an already inbuilt audience? And yes, there may be cynicism here, but at least the intention and result may be that readers might return to the base material, the source of inspiration, and thereby construct some defence against what Hitchens terms in his contribution as "the abysmal literary and rhetorical standards of our own day".

The 10 world-shakers are:

Simon Blackburn on Plato's Republic.

Janet Browne on Darwin's Origin of Species.

Christopher Hitchens on Thomas Paine's Rights of Man.

Bruce Lawrence on the Qu'ran.

Francis Wheen on Karl Marx's Das Kapital.

PJ O'Rourke on Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations.

Karen Armstrong on the Bible to be published October 2007.

Alberto Manguel on Homer's Odyssey and Iliad, to be published October 2007.

Hew Strachan on Clausewitz's On War to be published October 2007.

Philip Bobbit on Machiavelli's The Prince to be published 2008.