Dark Side of the Moon: Wernher von Braun, the Third Reich, and the Space Race

A stunning investigation of the roots of the first moon landing forty years ago.

This illuminating story of the dawn of the space age reaches back to the reactionary modernism of the Third Reich, using the life of “rocket scientist” Wernher von Braun as its narrative path through the crumbling of Weimar Germany and the rise of the Nazi regime. Von Braun, a blinkered opportunist who could apply only tunnel vision to his meteoric career, stands as an archetype of myriad twentieth century tech...