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Out for Christmas. All bad or any redeeming qualities?

Yes. No. Not even a very good historian.

It is perhaps interesting to note that in all the voluminous writings on WWII by Churchill, de Gaulle and Eisenhower, there is no mention whatsoever of "the" holocaust.

Being put in prison for his beliefs is a little bit of a wake up call that we could all be in the same position. Would we want a different approach to incarceration if it happened to us? We all know what he believes is an utter load of shit, but if we wish for him to be put in prison for saying it, then we have to accept the same fate for ourselves.

From a piece written in The Times:

It is far better that Irving should be at liberty to spout his vile nonsense, and derided for it. Let him traipse back to Britain, demanding an academic boycott of Austria and Germany, which everyone will ignore. Then his ideas can slide back into the intellectual mud where they belong. We need to hear the poisonous ideas to realise how wrong they are.

Indeed, as Warren Z points out, putting him in prison just makes a martyr of him and his beliefs. Far better that he is a free man. Freedom of thought and expression isn't necessarily a bad thing.

Its strange irony that in trying to eliminate a particular evil, by gaoling Irving for his beliefs , a bit of Nazism is promoted.

That often happens.

I find Irving quite a likeable character, he has written many interesting stories, even the denial of the Holocaust was interesting whether right or wrong, the truth can only come from the people who took part, they can also choose to embelish the facts or tell it as it really happened, like a good barrister he simply points out the facts dissects them, and leaves the reader to make up his or her own mind.
I myself choose to believe there is no God, Jesus, or immaculate conception, hopefully I wont get put in prison for it.