Review o f The CodeBreakers : The Story of Secrete Writin g Author: David Kah n Publisher : Scribner, over 1000 pages ! List Price $65 .00, but cheaper on www .bestbookbuys .com Reviewer : William Gasarch (gasarch@cs .umd .edu) 1 Overview and Summary The Codebreakers chronicles the history of crypto (both making codes and breaking them) fro m antiquity until the advent of public key cryptography . The first edition was published in 1967-before most of the World War II documents were made public . The second edition was publishe d in 1996 and includes more info on World War II and some on public key . The later treatment is sketchy ; hence the book is best viewed as a history up through World War II . The first chapter discusses crypto around the time of the attack on Pearl Harbor . The chapter is longer then it needs to be but does give an informed and complete picture . As such it is a metaphor for the entire (1301 page) book . Chapters 2-19 are (roughly) chronological . Chapter 2, titled "The first 3000 years" tells o f crypto from 2900 BC until 1600 AD
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