A brilliant, self-taught man raised in humble circumstances, John Philip Holland (1841-1914) earned his living as a schoolteacher and choirmaster, but all the while he was obsessed with creating a fully functioning attack submarine. Holland's struggle to unlock the mystery behind controlled undersea navigation would take three decades, and he endured skepticism, disappointment, and betrayal, while weathering battles in the back rooms of Wall Street and the committee rooms of Congress. Having profiled Henry Ford in Drive! and the Wright Brothers in The Bird Men, Lawrence Goldstone here recounts the life and trials of another innovator whose belief in himself and his ideas helped him to succeed where so many others had failed.