As a bacteria threatens to wipe out humankind, a plutocrat sets
himself up as the benignant dictator of a survivalist colony.
In this novel originally published in 1923, as denitrifying bacteria
inimical to plant growth spreads around the world, toppling
civilizations and threatening to wipe out humankind, the British
plutocrat Nordenholt sets himself up as the benignant dictator of a
ruthlessly efficient, entirely undemocratic, survivalist colony
established in Scotland's Clyde Valley. Discovering just how far their
employer is willing to go in his effort to spare one million lives, Jack
Flint, the colony's director of operations, and Elsa Huntingtower,
Nordenholt's personal assistant, are forced to grapple with the question
of whether a noble end justifies dastardly means.