"The Code Book" tells the story of the most powerful intellectual weapon ever known: secrecy. Throughout the text are clear technical and mathematical explanations, and portraits of the remarkable personalities who wrote and broke the world's most difficult codes. Accessible, compelling, and remarkably far-reaching, this book will forever alter your view of history and what drives it. It will also make you wonder how private that e-mail you just sent...

A chronicle of cryptography and an explanation of the cryptographer's craft. The achievements of cryptography, the art of writing and deciphering coded messages, have become a part of everyday life, especially in our age of electronic banking and the Internet. In Code Breaking , Rudolf Kippenhahn offers readers both an exciting chronicle of cryptography and a lively exploration of the cryptographer's craft. Rich with vivid anecdotes from a history...

Kahn traces history of codes and ciphers from the dawn of civilization and details their influence on war, commerce, diplomacy, and espionage.