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.