About the book
The history of codes and ciphers from ancient Egypt to the time of writing is the subject of David Kahn's account, which covers how codes are made and how they are broken. Its range takes in war, diplomacy, business and espionage, with episodes such as the Dreyfus Affair and the Zimmermann telegram. Kahn, then a journalist, eventually quit his job to write it full time, and, according to James Bamford, the National Security Agency tried to stop publication; Kahn and his publisher agreed to cut some material, notably on the NSA's ties to Britain's GCHQ. Published in 1967, it was later updated with an added chapter covering the Ultra secret and the cryptography of computers.
Tyler Cowen read it as a boy and said it taught him that problems are there to be solved, along with a sense of what a history should report.
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This book has 1 recommendation
Tyler Cowen (Founder/Marginal Revolution University)
I read this one quite young, and learned that problems are to be solved! I also developed some sense of what a history could look like and what a history should report. I recall my uncle thinking it deeply strange that a boy my age should be reading a book of such length.
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