Fastest man on earth -- Native sons -- The selden patent -- Meet me in St. Louis -- Sensation -- Bad behaviors, bad roads -- The horse loses power -- The West, still wild -- Victories and defeats -- Doubts subsiding -- "Equal to his weight in wildcats

From an acclaimed popular historian comes a fresh, meticulous, and entertaining account of Henry Ford and his invention of the Model-T--the machine that defined the dawning age in America. Every century or so, our republic has been changed by a new technology: 170 years ago it was the railroad;...