Singh blends history with accessible technical details on the developments of cryptography…

The Code Book: The Science of Secrecy from Ancient Egypt to Quantum Cryptography

Author: Simon Singh

Rating: 3.9 / 5

Singh blends history with accessible technical details on the developments of cryptography. I enjoyed the casting of historical events as key drivers of technological advancements in security and encryption, with heavy emphasis on World War II. Singh walks through the increasingly-sophisticated encryption methods over time, with examples simplified enough for most audiences to be able to follow (and even exercises in the Appendix for those who want to get hands-on). While this book is too old to cover applications of cryptography in currencies and blockchains, the ending chapters of this book describes the necessary breakthroughs for these technologies. This book is ideal for someone who wants to get one layer deeper in understanding what it means to encrypt and decrypt messages (as many of us are probably naively clicking “encypt” emails nowadays) without laboring through technical books. This book also serves as a nice primer for those who wish to learn these topics further.

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