Every century or so, our republic has been changed by a new technology: 170 years ago it was the railroad; today it's the microprocessor. But in the early twentieth century it was the gasoline-combustion engine, built by a young, unknown, industrious man named Henry Ford.

Born into a steam-powered world, the young farm boy saw the advantages of internal combustion; using his innate mechanical abilities, hard work, and imagination he transformed the US's industry and went on to become an American icon. In many ways, his story is well known; in just as many other ways, it is not. Richard Snow 'writes with verve and a keen eye' (New York Times Book Review) to weave together a fascinating narrative of Ford's rise to fame-as well as his creative personality and spirit-through his greatest invention, the Model T. The car transformed our nation in a decade, and made Ford a national hero. But then Ford soured, and the benevolent side of his character went into an ever-deepening eclipse, even as the cultural change he initiated remade America.