The Codebreakers

The best book on the history of cryptography ever. Kahn takes you back in time so skillfully that you feel you're there. I loved this book so much that, even owning an older copy, I purchased the newer edition just for the update. As a reference, it's indispensable; as a history it's authoritative and, just as a damned good story, it's eminently re-readable.

Magisterial history of codes and ciphers. Comprehensive, detailed, and based on research of a depth seldom seen outside of dissertations. Citations from the technical and historical literature in a number of languages, from extremely obscure periodicals, newspapers and journals, and much original archival work impress the reader with the seriousness of this venture. Kahn has a gift for treating complicated technical matters with astonishing clarity without giving the feeling of writing down to a non-professional audience. He is especially strong on military and espionage matters, and in these chapters use a style somewhat indebted to the rhetoric of the thriller, and only occasionally does his prose become clichéd or purple. Although show more this is ostensively a second edition, he leaves much of the original material unchanged, so that attitudes very rooted in the 1960s will seem strange when couple with the 1996 copyright of this version. The one very weak chapter is on the NSA, which is largely speculative and strongly reflects the level of information available in the 60s. All in all, a magnificent and entertaining achievement. show less

Great book that gives you the complete history of cryptography from ancient times until the fifties. Good decision to end it there. Although it's a history book, not a cryptography book, it provides enough explanation to gradually start understanding what encryption is about, especially for the non-expert.

Great anecdotes, like Queen Mary was beheaded because her cryptographers failed, and Philip van Marnix van St Aldegonde, poet who wrote the Dutch national hymn, also was the first cryptographer in the Netherlands.

Everybody who is involved with cryptography, or a subject even related to that, should read this book. Historians should read it too. You should, too.

A very comprehensive history of hidden writing, codes, ciphers and other such things. It goes pretty well into depth with how it describes ancient codes and ciphers, how new ones were made and how they were then broken.

It doesn't cover internet security or anything, since this edition of this book was published in 1967. So it is still in the midst of the Cold War. Interestingly, most code breaking was done by linguists and language experts, but that eventually turned into mathematicians.

It doesn't talk about Alan Turing, since at the time of this book being published, it was classified, or at least I think it was.

Anyway, a wonderful tome on how people tried to keep their messages secret.

Probably the definitive history on codes, codebreaking, and it's increasingly important role in shaping military history. It's comprehensive scope ranges from the ancient world to the public-key era, with special attention paid to the postal system of Vienna, the triumphs and failures of signal intelligence during the World Wars, and recently-declassified information about the early Cold War.

I don't believe there has been any more comprehensive history of cryptography written. The updated version brings the history to the end of the twentieth century. Every style of cryptography, from every culture, is covered in this book. Very well researched and well written. It is a bit long... But it's worth the time.

The Codebreakers: The Comprehensive History of Secret Communication from Ancient Times to the Internet

Historian of intelligence Enigma to the cryptosystems that make e-commerce offering the best fitting magnificent, unrivaled history of codes and ciphers you can reader through the history of cryptography to the present day played since the earliest period of civilization in war, business, diplomacy, and espionage transactions have put a spotlight on the intersection the Internet erasing national borders,now have lots more time to,completely controls set by Internet engineers,generally control your internet sense of concern with and curiosity a new chapter on computer cryptography,gripped the minds of so many intelligent men and broken show more codes to learn those secrets since the time of the Pharaohs with journalist and writer codes to learn diplomatic intrigues foiled,business secrets stolen, governments,to outer space to the magnificent, unrivaled history of codes and the story of these battles is civilization's secret history show less