THE INVINCIBLE QUEST The Life of Richard Milhous Conrad Black Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 2007. 1059pp, $45.00 cloth (ISBN 978-0-7710-1123-8)Ever since Boswell completed his famous biography of Johnson more than 200 years ago, it has been fascinating to consider the relationship between biographers and their subjects. Why did the author choose the subject he or she did? Is the biographer sympathetic, not so sympathetic, or downright hostile? Does the biographer capture the spirit of the subject, and understand what makes him or her tick? Finally, does the published work tell us almost as much about the biographer as it does about the subject?Seldom have these questions seemed more pertinent than with Conrad Black's biography of Richard Nixon, arguably the case of one incredibly bright, accomplished but tragically flawed individual writing about another. There is even a sense of foreboding in The Invincible Quest, that the author's tragedy has yet to be fully played out, but that-as in the case of himself-tragedy could be followed by redemption, if not vindication. Consider, for example, the titles of the last four chapters of the biography, covering the end of the Vietnam war, the Watergate scandal, Nixon's resignation, and his (at least partial) rehabilitation during his retirement: the pinnacle, the precipice, the inferno, and the transfiguration.Conrad Black has also gone from the pinnacle (when he ran one of the world's largest media companies, with prestigious holdings such as London's Daily Telegraph), to the precipice (questions about how Hollinger was being run from US money manager Tweedie Browne, which Black airily dismissed), to the inferno (the last few years, during which Black has essentially lost everything-and last 10 December, he was sentenced to six and a half years in a US prison for fraud and obstruction of justice), and the transfiguration (not impossible, given Black's determination and strength of character).The specific points of commonality between author and subject are uncanny. often saw himself fighting-alone except for his familyagainst dark forces of opposition, led by a hostile media. He never gave up; he was a fighter to the end. He often launched tirades against opponents, real or imagined. He was let down by aides. This sounds like Conrad Black's view of the world: betrayed by his longtime partner David Radier, and supported through thick and thin by his children and wife Barbara Amiel, to whom he dedicates this book with the extraordinary words, [s]he is beyond praise and criticism. Of course, Nixon's famous statement during Watergate, I am not a crook, is something Conrad Black has been saying, in effect, for the last few years.Both Richard and Conrad Black are remarkably durable figures, remaining in the public mind for so long it is hard to remember when they were not there, for almost half a century and Black since the 19703 and counting. Nixon, writes Black, would prove the most durable American political leader since Jefferson, leading an army of the awkward, the ordinary, the unflamboyant, silent masses of millions of decent, unexceptional people, through important decades of American history (422).It is easy to forget how central was to the fabric of American political life long before the Vietnam war (and his silent majority speech), his famous trip to China in 1972, and Watergate. Among much else, there was his relentless pursuit of the alleged Soviet spy Alger Hiss; his 1958 trip to Venezuela, where he was met by jeering mobs; his famous kitchen debate with Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev in 1959; his loss to John F. Kennedy in the 1960 presidential election; his 1962 loss in the race for governor of California, and his memorable you won't have to kick around anymore comment to the press.In Black's view, Nixon was, with Reagan, the chief builder of the modern Republican party, and he was the supreme Cold Warrior-from champion of the Red Scare in the forties to inventor of detente in the seventies (1053). …