A superb novel based on Henry Ford’s amazing but doomed attempt to stop the First World War when he charters a Peace Ship to cross the Atlantic.

In 1915, neutral America is debating the proper response to the war in Europe. Increasingly involved in this debate is inventor, industrialist and billionaire, Henry Ford. He is against war because it is bad for business.

Henry Ford is barely educated but he knows how to make a headline, and when he declares that he will give up all he possesses to stop the build-up to war, the papers get to work. Into his orbit comes the bombastic peace-activist Rosika Schwimmer who persuades him that a Peace Ship filled with the great and the good should sail to Europe, set up a mediation commission, and “get the boys out of the trenches by Christmas.” With Ford’s money the idea quickly becomes a reality and everyone is in on the act. Chartering the Oscar and leaving in a storm of publicity, but with most credible invitees turning him down, Ford finds himself in the mid-Atlantic, menaced by invisible U-boats, on a ship full of eccentrics and idealists. Back home he is ridiculed as the expedition descends into acrimonious farce.

Told in the many voices of those around Ford: his wife, his chauffeur, the activists, politicians and journalists aboard his Ship of Fools, King Henry is a captivating story based on one of the most extraordinary episodes of the early twentieth century.


From the Hardcover edition.