Enigma: The Battle for the Code [Import] [Paperback]

Hugh Sebag-Montefiore (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 416 pages
• Publisher: Phoenix; New Ed edition (2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0753811308
• ISBN-13: 978-0753811306
• Product Dimensions: 7.7 x 5.1 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,922,764 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

64 of 65 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A blow-by-blow account, August 2, 2004

By 

Craig MACKINNON (Thunder Bay, Ontario Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Enigma: The Battle for the Code (Paperback)

The Ultra secret was kept for a long time after WWII. Recently declassified, it was the Allied code name for the Enigma ciphering system used by the Germans to coordinate U-boat attacks, to gather weather reports and intellegence, etc. This book is interesting in that the author gives ample space to the sailors and intellegence officers that gathered hard data, often from sinking U-boats, instead of focussing exclusively on the technical work performed at Bletchley Park. The result is an action-packed account that speeds through the material, while giving the reader a glimpse at the personalities and actions of the people responsible for solving the Enigma.

The book is arranged roughly chronologically, but Sebag-Montefiore divides his chapters into subject areas that span months at a time. This makes for a better flow. Therefore, the book backtracks from time-to-time, but it is never confusing, due to the skill of the author (and his editor). Oft-neglected episodes are included, much to the benefit of the book - because the U.S. and Britain were the two largest Allied powers, many books overlook contributions by other nations. Not so with this book - the Polish codebreakers that originally duplicated the Enigma and broke the peacetime ciphers are given more space than the celebrated Alan Turing. Likewise, the Canadian contribution to convoy duty (and therefore U-boat hunting and intellegence gathering from sinking U-boats) is given its rightful share of space.

The author wisely keeps the pace moving with events and doesn't allow the narrative to bog down in technical descriptions of the deciphering procedures. These procedures are gathered as appendices at the end of the book. The appendices are not great - they are descriptive without going into the mathematical detail, and therefore come across as "hand-waving." Luckily this difficulty does not detract from the main part of the book, so is not a fatal flaw, but those looking for a technical explanation should look elsewhere.

38 of 38 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A great antidote to the Hollywood history re-writing machine, December 29, 2001

By 

"pohopetch" (Thames, New Zealand) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Enigma: The Battle for the Code (Hardcover)

It's remarkable that 60 years on new information continues to surface about the breaking of the Enigma code. Having followed much of the "new material" released over the last 20 years in books and films it is great to see other key players in the Enigma drama getting due credit.

Forget about the crude attempts by Hollywood in the film U-571 to credit the americans with breaking the code, and read this book to find out about the huge contributions by the Poles (who were breaking Enigma in the early 1930's), the British and Canadian seaman (boarding subs and weather reporting trawlers to capture code books), and the French.

This book is not for those who want a deep understanding of deciphering techniques used at Bletchly Park - this is covered in other exellent volumes (see Sarah Flannery's book "In code: A mathematical journey" if you want a gentle introduction to cryptography ). It does give detailed and personal accounts of the risks taken by others in the armed forces and outside to secure code books, Enigma machine wheels and other "cribs" to help the code breakers.

The hardest part for me was reading about the fate of the various Polish mathemeticians who pioneered the Enigma work throughout the 1930's, and who were mostly left to perish in tragic circumstances by the French and British, despite being got out of Poland after the German invasion.

35 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Reads like a novel, April 26, 2002

By 

Philip J. Moore (Alma, MI USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Enigma: The Battle for the Code (Hardcover)

This is an excellent history of code breaking during World War II. The majority of the book is from the British perspective. It is action packed. If you are looking for the math behind the code breaking, this is not the book.

Some key points are:
-Code breaking of enigma much sooner than I had known.

-Steps that the Germans took to "secure" their code often backfired and made it easier to break.

-We are all human. Human habits were key to breaking the codes.

-The code breaking was a key weapon in WWII.

This book whet my appetite. I hope the author writes more. Possible topics include:
-German code breaking. Too many teasers in this book about the German code breakers.. I want more details.

-US code breaking of Japan and Germany.

-The hints of the French activity left me wanting to know more.

Overall I enjoyed the book. I would recommend it to history buffs and math buffs (too few books where mathematics and mathematicians are the heros.)