King Henry

by Douglas Galbraith (Author)

• Used

  Paperback
  2008

  $3.27

  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'. 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 adn parasites, while their reports to the papers back home turn the entire venture into a laughing stock. The resulting novel is a captivating and virtuosic tale based on one of the most extraordinary episodes of the early twentieth century.

• Used

  Hardcover
  2007

  $5.92

  It is the year 1915. Neutral America is debating the proper response to the war in Europe. Increasingly involved in this debate is Henry Ford: inventor, industrialist, and billionaire. He is against war - it is bad for business. Ford is barely educated but 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. Fortunes are spent in his name. 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, idealists, parasites, and hard-drinking journalists on the story of their lives. 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 and virtuosic novel based on one of the most extraordinary episodes of the early twentieth century. It is a strikingly contemporary story of a well-intentioned king with a court that has run mad who suffers a spectacular fall from grace.

• New

  Paperback
  2008

  $11.35

  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'. 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 adn parasites, while their reports to the papers back home turn the entire venture into a laughing stock. The resulting novel is a captivating and virtuosic tale based on one of the most extraordinary episodes of the early twentieth century.