The Codebreakers Hardback - 1996
by Kahn, David
- Used
- Hardback
- first
This updated edition of the classic history of codes and ciphers--how they work, how they are broken, and the roles they have played in war and peace--has also been expanded to include a new final chapter on computer security issues.
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Details
- Title The Codebreakers
- Author Kahn, David
- Binding Hardback
- Edition Rev Sub
- Pages 1200
- Volumes 1
- Language ENG
- Publisher Scribner Book Company, New York
- Publication date 1996-12-05
- Illustrated Yes
- Features Bibliography, Illustrated, Index
- Bookseller's Inventory # 23024
- ISBN 9780684831305 / 0684831309
- Weight 3.62 lbs (1.64 kg)
- Dimensions 9.44 x 6.6 x 2.33 in (23.98 x 16.76 x 5.92 cm)
- Category History - General History
- Library of Congress subjects Cryptography - History
- Library of Congress Catalogue Number 96031318
- Dewey Decimal Code 652.8
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Reader reviews for The Codebreakers
Review summary
"The Codebreakers" by David Kahn is widely regarded as the definitive historical account of cryptology and codebreaking from ancient times through the 1960s. Readers consistently praised its comprehensive scope, meticulous research, and engaging narrative style, though many noted its substantial length—over 1,100 pages—and acknowledged its age. The book is frequently cited as essential reading for anyone interested in the history of secret communications, espionage, and intelligence gathering, despite being published in 1967 with only minimal updates in subsequent editions. Reviewers recognized it as an authoritative reference work that remains unmatched in its breadth of historical detail, though they noted it requires supplementary modern sources for contemporary cryptography and reflects dated cultural attitudes.
Readers say this book is:
comprehensive authoritative engaging dated exhaustive definitive scholarly meticulous dense fascinatingWrite a review for this book
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From the publisher
From the rear cover
Man has created codes to keep secrets and has broken codes to learn those secrets since the time of the Pharaohs. For 4,000 years, fierce battles have been waged between codemakers and codebreakers, and the story of these battles is civilization's secret history, the hidden account of how wars were won and lost, diplomatic intrigues foiled, business secrets stolen, governments ruined, computers hacked. From the XYZ Affair to the Dreyfus Affair, from the Gallic War to the Persian Gulf, from Druidic runes and the kaballah to outer space, from the Zimmermann telegram to Enigma to the Manhattan Project, codebreaking has shaped the course of human events to an extent beyond any easy reckoning. Once a government monopoly, cryptology today touches everybody. It secures the Internet, keeps e-mail private, maintains the integrity of cash machine transactions, and scrambles TV signals on unpaid-for channels. David Kahn's The Codebreakers takes the measure of what codes and codebreaking have meant in human history in a single comprehensive account, astonishing in its scope and enthralling in its execution. Hailed upon first publication as a book likely to become the definitive work of its kind, The Codebreakers has more than lived up to that prediction: it remains unsurpassed. With a brilliant new chapter that makes use of previously classified documents to bring the book thoroughly up to date, and to explore the myriad ways computer codes and their hackers are changing all of our lives, The Codebreakers is the skeleton key to a thousand thrilling true stories of intrigue, mystery, and adventure. It is a masterpiece of the historian's art.
