My Review
A Matter of Principle by Conrad Black
My rating: 1 of 5 stars
Reviews I had read prompted me to buy the book, but it did not live up to expectations.
He is somewhat a right wing character and dismissive of anyone with views not aligned to his. I am not sorry that he was unable to get control of the Australian newspaper group Black mentions he was trying to buy; we already have more than enough newspapers pushing right wing views.
So much of the book at least to the point where I stopped reading, which was just over 100 pages of the 590, dealt with tedious financial matters, lots of name dropping of people who has met and about the meetings. When Black discussed what went on in the writing and editing of papers things were somewhat more interesting. However I decoded to give it away as a quite uninteresting book as I felt it was a waste of my time and I would be better off reading something else.
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Book Publicity
In 1993, Conrad Black was the proprietor of London's Daily Telegraph and the head of one of the world's largest newspaper groups. He completed a memoir in 1992, A Life in Progress, and "great prospects beckoned." In 2004, he was fired as chairman of Hollinger International after he and his associates were accused of fraud. Here, for the first time, Black describes his indictment, four-month trial in Chicago, partial conviction, imprisonment, and largely successful appeal.
In this unflinchingly revealing and superbly written memoir, Black writes without reserve about the prosecutors who mounted a campaign to destroy him and the journalists who presumed he was guilty. Fascinating people fill these pages, from prime ministers and presidents to the social, legal, and media elite, among them: Margaret Thatcher, Tony Blair, George W. Bush, Jean Chrétien, Rupert Murdoch, Izzy Asper, Richard Perle, Norman Podhoretz, Eddie Greenspan, Alan Dershowitz, and Henry Kissinger.
Woven throughout are Black's views on big themes: politics, corporate governance, and the U.S. justice system. He is candid about highly personal subjects, including his friendships - with those who have supported and those who have betrayed him - his Roman Catholic faith, and his marriage to Barbara Amiel. And he writes about his complex relations with Canada, Great Britain, and the United States, and in particular the blow he has suffered at the hands of that nation.
In this extraordinary book, Black maintains his innocence and recounts what he describes as "the fight of and for my life." A Matter of Principle is a riveting memoir and a scathing account of a flawed justice system.
