7.24.2009
Von Braun: Dreamer of Space, Engineer of War
by Michael J. Neufeld, 477pgs, hardcover
Overall Grade: A-
This hardcover beast was part of the reading list for a class on the history of the space age that I sat in on a couple of years back. A huge, but very readable biography on Wernher von Braun, famously known rocket scientist who developed the V2 that bombed London, and the Saturn V that sent men to the moon. If you are interested in space like I am, you'll probably relish learning all this stuff about one of the great minds behind the space age, otherwise you probably will find this tome tiresome. But if you are interested, you'll learn a lot of interesting stuff, starting with the fact that his commonly mispronounced last name should actually sound like 'von brown'.
My only complaint is that the sections between breaks are very long, so you have a hard time finding places to stop. And very apropos, I finished reading this on July 20th, which was the 40th anniversary of the first lunar landing!
Labels: genre: biographical, genre: historical, genre: non-fiction, genre: science, media: book
