The achievements of cryptography--the art of writing and deciphering coded messages--have become a part of everyday life, especially in our age of electronic banking and the Internet. In this provocative work, Rudolf Kippenhahn offers readers both an exciting chronicle of cryptography and a lively exploration of the cryptographer's craft. Rich with vivid anecdotes from a history of coding and decoding, Code Breaking brings the often abstruse art of deciphering coded messages to the general reader and reveals the relevance of codes to our everyday high-tech society. A stylishly written, meticulously researched adventure, it will enthrall everyone who wants to know more about the ways in which communication can be obscured and, like magic, made clear again. A Selection of Doubleday's Library of Science Book ClubA Choice Academic Book of the Year