In this work, Flexner chronicles the lives of three men, all striving to invent the first steamboat, and shows the pattern of their interwoven fates. In his introduction, Flexner profiles his first protagonist, John Fitch, as an archetypal wild man of genius …born to create what would not be accepted, to fight man and God for what he considered justice, and in the end, destroy himself . Fitch’s rival and enemy, James Rumsey, was A backwoods gambler, suave and humorous where Fitch was torrential, Rumsey was also (but how differently!) self-destroyed . Enter Robert Fulton, an inventor born to succeed, with whom the tale of anguished pioneering ends. Flexner paints the final hero as an able and cynical opportunist who became rich, socially elevated, and down through the generations, famous .