The Rocket's Red Glare uses the life of instrumental German rocket scientist Wernher von Braun as a metaphor for the selective way history is told. This series challenges the often dual retelling of significant 20th-century events, starting in Nazi-era Germany and culminating in the moon landing. In 1932 Wernher von Braun went to work for the German army. By 1937 he was the technical director of the Army Rocket Center in Peenemunde where the V2 rocket was created and tested. After the war, he was brought to the United States under Operation Paperclip, eventually becoming a key figure at NASA and architect of the Saturn V rocket. The book follows in the footsteps of two rocket scientists: von Braun in Germany and Jack Parsons in Pasadena, CA. One developed the V2 for Hitler and the Saturn V for NASA; the other made groundbreaking contributions to rocket fuel but was also second in command of Aleister Crowley's occult religion and was written out of NASA's history for decades.