This novel was written by Bertha von Suttner, an Austrian-Bohemian countess, pacifist, and novelist. In 1905, she became the second female Nobel laureate (after Marie Curie in 1903), the first woman to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, and the first Austrian laureate. Here, the themes of war and pacificism take life in Mr. John A. Toker, an American multimillionaire who decided to develop airships — for the betterment of humanity — against the zeitgeist, which is on the verge of war between sovereign nations.