Seizing The Enigma
By David Kahn
1991
First Published
3.94
Average Rating
408
Number of Pages
Among the famous battles of World War II, the longest and most critical was the Battle of the Atlantic—the struggle between the American convoys bringing supplies to Britain and the German U-boats bent on severing that lifeline. No matter where else on earth conflicts raged, leaders on both sides understood that whoever won the Battle of the Atlantic would win the war. From the start, Germany had the advantage with the diabolically devised encryption machine known as Enigma. Breaking the Enigma codes became the singleminded obsession of a brilliant band of mathematicians, chess champions, and linguists who labored on behalf of the Allied cause behind closed doors at an English estate called Bletchley Park. In this book, cryptologist David Kahn recounts the story of the dramatic race between codemakers and codebreakers, focusing on the personalities involved, describing the at-sea captures of encryption keys that led to the Allied breakthrough, and depicting the enormous impact this information had on the most cataclysmic war in history. B&W photos.
Avg Rating
3.94
Number of Ratings
888
5 STARS
28%
4 STARS
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3 STARS
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2 STARS
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1 STARS
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goodreads
Author
David Kahn
Author · 12 books
David Kahn is a historian who writes on military codebreaking. He earned a D.Phil in modern German history from Oxford University in 1974 under the supervision of the then-Regius professor of modern history, Hugh Trevor-Roper. Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.
