» Enigma: The Battle for the Code

Enigma: The Battle for the Code Reviews

Customer Rating:
Summary: Poorly structured account.
Comment: A tedious and poorly organised account of a fabulously interesting history. Other reviewers have writen accurately about this book's good qualities but none have told how gripping it could be for a few pages and how absolutely bloodless and irritating it could turn for the next 10, leaving this reader frustrated, wanting the author to finish his present narrative (sometimes of treason and spies) before going onto the next stage of his story. Then there are the many pages of how the enigma machines actually worked. Perhaps code-breakers could follow it, but it was (again to this reader) writing as clear as mud -- descriptive writing so incredibly turgid as to make one read it aloud and laugh.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: My first WWII history book
Comment: I recently became interested in the history of World War II. I was looking for a good book about the subject to read and I stumbled upon this one. Also having a degree in computer science and mathematics I decided this was the book for me.

I have never read a history book like this before and wasn't really sure how I would like it. So far I have absolutely loved it.

You would expect the pacing and dialog to be very slow and boring but that is not the case at all. This book has held my interest thoroughly from the start.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Generous overviw, well supported
Comment: I enjoyed this "chatty" (typically British, public school style) account of how Enigma was broken and constantly re-broken as the Nazi's upgraded their systems over the course of the conflict. Seabag-Montefiore has done his homework providing a well researched account of Bletchleys Park's major contributions at many decisive turning points in WWII. He also shone some light on many of the "front line" Polish and French agents and controllers who provided vital intelligence about the key inner-workings of the actual Enigma "typewriting" machines at the beginning of the war. Following their exploits through to their ends provided a human face to those heroic individuals surviving after occupation. Reasonably footnoted and sprinkled with a number of first-person accounts gained though increasingly rare interviews. Extensive appendices provide a good primer on the main cryptographic problems encountered and the various work-arounds the code-breakers discovered. All in all a well rounded history of the contributions made by British intelligence and others to the defeat of Hitlers mad ambitions.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Good but not great history of cracking the naval enigma
Comment: Without a doubt the Allies' cracking the German enigma is one of the greatest, and perhaps the deciding, accomplishment of World War Two. Winston Churchill called the cryptanalysts at Bletchley Park the geese who consistently laid golden eggs, without ever cackling.

This history of the battle to break the naval enigma is a good book; thorough, well-researched, not excessively tedious (because the technical details are relegated to appendices.) All the same, I found the book to be akin to reading a corporate history; the capture of U-boats and other boats with code books, the sinking of ships, and betrayal of secrets becomes repetitive. If this really interests you, you'll really like the book. Alas, I think that a good book could have been a great book if it had also gone into further detail than to simply mention that the Germans had also cracked some of the Allies' naval codes.

Crypto and history buffs will enjoy this book; the less enthusiastic will probably find it a slog.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Great writing, but limited mainly to Navy Enigma
Comment: Mr Sebag-Montefiore is an excellent story teller. It is diffcult to put this book aside.

In contrast to other books on Enigma the technical details of the breaking are given in Appendixes, which makes reading easier. This is a very good idea.

My only qualm is that the story is mainly that of the navy Enigma. Little is devoted to the air force and army Enigma, which is a pity.

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