1915. Neutral America is debating the proper response to the war: Henry Ford - inventor, industrialist, billionaire - decides it's bad for business. When he announces he will give up everything to stop it, the papers go to work and he agrees to fund a peace ship to sail to Europe with the promise: 'Out of the trenches by Christmas, never to return'.<BR><BR>Struggling to persuade any serious political figures to join his quest, Ford leaves New York with the bombastic peace activist, Rosika Schwimmer, and her entourage, along with a sodden, cynical pack of journalists. Ford initially embraces the press, but he soon finds himself menaced by invisible U-boats in the mid-Atlantic, surrounded by eccentrics, idealists and parasites, while their reports to the papers back home turn the entire venture into a laughing stock. <BR><BR>The resulting novel is a captivating and virtuosic tale based on one of the most extraordinary episodes of the early twentieth century.