Michael J. Neufeld, curator and space historian at the
Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum, delivers a brilliantly
nuanced biography of Wernher von Braun.
Chief rocket engineer of the Third Reich and one of the fathers
of the U.S. space program, Wernher von Braun is a source of
consistent fascination. Glorified as a visionary and vilified as a
war criminal, he was a man of profound moral complexities, whose
intelligence and charisma were coupled with an enormous and, some
would say, blinding ambition. Based on new sources, Neufeld's
biography delivers a meticulously researched and authoritative
portrait of the creator of the V-2 rocket and his times, detailing
how he was a man caught between morality and progress, between his
dreams of the heavens and the earthbound realities of his life.