Historian freed from jail

I don't really wish jail time on anyone, I guess, but I cannot help thinking Conrad Black's career as historian, thinker, controversialist, and commentator has never flourished so well as during the time he has been incarcerated. Being away from his other career in the business world has also been pretty good for him and for the public.


The law must apply, even as rewritten by George Bush's men on the US Supreme Court. But it seems inevitable that Black's obsession with his failed business career is now going to interfere with the work for which he really has gifts. This was my take on Black's historical work in 2004.


Update, July 22: One of Black's last prison writings, a hostile review of a new history of the Richard Nixon presidency. (Thanks, Cliopatria.)

(Photo: The Telegraph, London.)