How and why did this quintessential American folk-hero and pioneering industrialist become one of the most obsessive anti-Semites of our time-a man who devoted his immense financial resources to publishing a pernicious forgery, The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion? And once Henry Ford's virulent media campaign against the Jews took off during the "anxious decade" following World War I, how did America's already splintered Jewish community attempt to cope with the relentless tirade conducted for ninety-one consecutive weeks in the automobile manufacturer's personal newspaper, The Dearborn Independent? What were the repercussions of Ford's Jew-hatred extending deeply into the 1930s?

Drawing upon previously uncited oral history transcripts, archival correspondence, and family memoirs, Neil Baldwin answers these and other questions; examining the biases of the men at the inner circle of the Ford Motor Company and disentangling the painful ideological struggles among an elite Jewish leadership reluctantly pitted against the clout and popularity of "The Flivver King."

As the Ford Motor Company celebrates its hundredth anniversary, with anti-Semitism resurgent in Europe and Islamic fundamentalists reading The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, Henry Ford and the Jews is a riveting biography with new relevance for anyone interested in contemporary history.