[In the following review, Clarke offers praise for Pale Blue Dot, but objects to Sagan's reference to Wernher von Braun as a "Nazi-American."]

An honest reviewer must disclose any special interest, and in the case of this book I have several, starting with David Hardy's magnificent Marsscape on the dust jacket. A slightly different version appears on page 328, which was used for the jacket of my own book The Snows of Olympus: A Garden on Mars. Frankly, I'm not sure which I prefer: they're both beautiful, but there's a subtle distinction between the two paintings. Not only has the planet on the front of Pale Blue Dot been terra-formed, it's been mirror-imaged, presumably by rotation through the fourth dimension!

My friendship with Carl, who in Japan would be regarded as a national treasure, began more than 30 years ago. My account of our adventures at the 1964 New York World's Fair appears in Roddy McDowall's Double Exposure: Take Three. The book and TV series Cosmos still remain paragons of that difficult art, popular science presentation, and Pale Blue Dot is a worthy successor.

How I wish that the opening chapters—especially "The Great Demotions" and "A Universe Not Made for Us"—were required reading in all high schools! Despite the biblical promise: "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free" (1 John 8:32), many people cannot face the truths of science that Carl so eloquently sets forth. Worse still, they may not even be able to hear them above the current babble of "new age" imbecilities and the megawatts of pious flimflam emitted by cynical—or ignorant—televangelists. Carl suggests, "A religion that stressed the magnificence of the Universe as revealed by modern science might be able to draw forth reserves of reverence and awe hardly touched by the conventional faiths. Sooner or later, such a religion will emerge." Perhaps. But would it be, like Buddhism, a religion without God?

Pale Blue Dot gives a fine survey of the great discoveries made during the (first) golden era of the space age and will help to keep up the spirits of those who are waiting impatiently for the second to begin. The numerous illustrations—who would have imagined, a generation ago, that such wonders would ever be revealed to us?—are so well reproduced that many, such as the Landsat or SPOT images of Earth, invite and even withstand examination with a magnifying glass. It will certainly be a surprise to most people to see that the U.S.-Mexican border is as prominent from space as it is in an atlas, owing to different agricultural practices.

By fortunate timing Pale Blue Dot has been able to take advantage of the most dramatic astronomical event in recorded history. The impact of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 on Jupiter is not only of great scientific interest, but it has also at last given an indisputable reason for developing advanced space technologies to protect our home from future cosmic bombardments. As Carl points out, hazards from comets and asteroids must apply to all planets, so no galactic civilization can be both long-lived and non-technical. "Their eventual choice, as ours, is spaceflight or extinction," he explains. I am glad that, despite more urgent and obvious problems, Congress has gotten the message—and I am flattered that NASA has adopted the name Spaceguard, which I proposed more than 20 years ago, for its planned survey of near-Earth threats.

Two other themes that this book discusses in considerable depth are terra-forming other planets (to make them more habitable) and the continuing search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI). Despite the ignorant hostility of some critics, it is difficult to imagine a more important quest. If SETI succeeds, it will give us some assurance that—despite the daily disasters on the evening TV news—intelligence does have survival value and is not an evolutionary aberration that dooms its possessors.

Unfortunately, I must end this review with a very serious criticism. Although I can understand (and even share—I was in the V-2 rocket target area) the feelings of those who condemn anyone who ever helped the Third Reich, Carl does my late friend Wernher von Braun a grave injustice by referring to him as a "Nazi-American." Wernher's scarcely disguised contempt for the Nazis often put him in serious danger. He was probably lucky to have escaped execution after being arrested and jailed by Heinrich Himmler (who had earlier failed to win his support by conferring SS rank on him—this most unwelcome "honor" would have been suicidal to reject). As is recorded in fascinating detail in Ernst Stuhlinger and Frederick Ordway's definitive biography Wernher von Braun: Crusader for Space, Wernher agonized over the moral issues involved for the rest of his life. However, his position was no different from that of all patriotic scientists and engineers in time of war.

As Carl rightly says, von Braun "more than anyone else, actually took us into space." He was also a warm and delightful human being, sincerely admired by all those who knew and worked for him—whatever their national origins. I hope, therefore, that the next edition of Pale Blue Dot will rectify this posthumous insult to one of the greatest men of our age.