The Codebreakers by David Kahn, First Edition (18 results)

hardcover. Condition: Very Good in Dustjacket. Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good. First Edition. New York. 1996. Scribner. 1st Printing of This New Revised & Updated Edition. Very Good in Dustjacket. 0684831309. 1200 pages. hardcover. keywords: Codes History Espionage. DESCRIPTION - The magnificent, unrivaled history of codes and ciphers - how they're made, how they're broken, and the many and fascinating roles they've played since the dawn of civilization in war, business, diplomacy, and espionage - updated with a new chapter on computer cryptography and the Ultra secret. Man has created codes to keep secrets and has broken codes to learn those secrets since the time of the Pharaohs. For 4,000 years, fierce battles have been waged between codemakers and codebreakers, and the story of these battles is civilization's secret history, the hidden account of how wars were won and lost, diplomatic intrigues foiled, business secrets stolen, governments ruined, computers hacked. From the XYZ Affair to the Dreyfus Affair, from the Gallic War to the Persian Gulf, from Druidic runes and the kaballah to outer space, from the Zimmermann telegram to Enigma to the Manhattan Project, codebreaking has shaped the course of human events to an extent beyond any easy reckoning. Once a government monopoly, cryptology today touches everybody. It secures the Internet, keeps e-mail private, maintains the integrity of cash machine transactions, and scrambles TV signals on unpaid-for channels. David Kahn's The Codebreakers takes the measure of what codes and codebreaking have meant in human history in a single comprehensive account, astonishing in its scope and enthralling in its execution. Hailed upon first publication as a book likely to become the definitive work of its kind, The Codebreakers has more than lived up to that prediction: it remains unsurpassed. With a brilliant new chapter that makes use of previously classified documents to bring the book thoroughly up to date, and to explore the myriad ways computer codes and their hackers are changing all of our lives, The Codebreakers is the skeleton key to a thousand thrilling true stories of intrigue, mystery, and adventure. It is a masterpiece of the historian's art. inventory #23024.

Cloth. Condition: About Fine. No Jacket. 1st Edition. 5th printing. Hard cover large 8vo in maroon cloth w/black cloth spine and gold titles. About Fine/No DJ. Cloth and spine rubbed, else Fine and unmarked. 1164 pp inc. Index; illustrated in photos, drawings, holograph facsimiles. Book.

Hardcover. Condition: Very Good. Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good. 1st Edition. former owner's name on front free end paper, otherwise a nice, clean, gently used copy, octavo, 1164 pages, stated first printing.

Hardcover. Condition: Fair. Dust Jacket Included. First Edition. Hardback. Heavy wear and soiling to jacket. Light wear to boards. Text is unmarked. No owners' names/labels. Stated first printing. (Shelf: C5) Books are carefully sealed in waterproof mailers and then boxed to prevent damage during transit.

Hardcover w/DJ. Condition: Used-Very Good/Used-Good. Black & White Photos & Illus. (illustrator). First Edition. London, UK: Weidenfeld and Nicolson. Used-Very Good/Used-Good. (1967). First Edition. Hardcover w/DJ. First Printing . Sm 4to., 1164 pp, DJ rubbed, frayed .

Hardcover. Condition: Very Good+. Dust Jacket Condition: Near Fine. First Edition; First Printing. Vg in near fine jacket, in fresh mylar sleeve; one closed tear at top of jacket front, some discoloring to topstain, small red offset stain to top corner of ffep else a tight square unmarked copy in unclipped dust jacket; stated first printing ; 1164 pages.

Hardcover. Condition: Fine. Dust Jacket Condition: very good. 1st. The dust jacket has minor wear to the extremities.

Hardcover. Condition: Fine. Dust Jacket Condition: very good. 1st. The dust jacket has minor wear to the extremities.

Hardcover. Condition: Very Good-. Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good-. First Edition. 1164 pp. Original red cloth covers w/ gilt title on blue cloth spine. Binding lightly soiled. Previous owner's name stamp on rear paste-down. DJ moderately soiled w/ approx. 1/2" closed tear to top edge of spine. Illust. w/ b/w plates. Contents very nice.

Condition: Near Fine. NY 1967 first edition , first printing (stated) Macmillan. Thick sm4to hardcover . 1164pp., index. Near Fine in VG DJ, dj is browned with a fold line doen backstrip. Owner bookplate.

Hardcover. Condition: Very Good. Dust Jacket Condition: Good +. Stated first printing. Unclipped ($14.95), mylar protected dust jacket. Clean text. Solid binding. Some wear to the spine ends (and some minor creasing), and along the bottom of the boards. The DJ has some creasing to the spine's head with a 1/2" closed tear and a small piece missing. The heel has minor creasing. The back/bottom edge has a 1 1/2" closed tear with some creasing. Some overall light soiling. The inside back flap has a corner crease, the top edge is curled inward with one 1/4" closed tear. +The backboard does have the Book Club dimple with the number 56046 underneath it.

Hardcover. Condition: Very Good+. Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good+. First Edition. 1164 pp. Original red cloth covers w/ gilt title on blue cloth spine. Binding lightly soiled. DJ moderately soiled. Illust. w/ b/w plates. Contents very nice.

Hardcover. Condition: Very Good+. Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good+. First Edition. 1164 pp. Original red cloth covers w/ gilt title on blue cloth spine. Binding lightly soiled. DJ moderately soiled. Illust. w/ b/w plates. Contents very nice.

Hardcover. Condition: Good. Dust Jacket Condition: Fair. First Printing. 1164, illus., bibliography, notes, index, some soiling & spotting to fore-edge, Small tears and creases in lower margin front flyleaf through p. vi. DJ soiled: small tears, small pieces missing. David Kahn (b. February 7, 1930) is a US historian, journalist and writer. He has written extensively on the history of cryptography and military intelligence. Kahn's first published book, The Codebreakers - The Story of Secret Writing (1967), has been widely considered to be a definitive account of the history of cryptography. Kahn has said he traces his interest in cryptography to reading Fletcher Pratt's Secret and Urgent as a boy. Kahn is a founding editor of the Cryptologia journal. In 1969, Kahn married Susanne Fiedler; they are now divorced. They have two sons, Oliver and Michael. He attended Bucknell University. After graduation, he worked as a reporter at Newsday for several years. He also served as an editor at the International Herald Tribune in Paris for two years in the 1960s. It was during this period that he wrote an article for the New York Times Magazine about two defectors from the National Security Agency. This article was the origin of his monumental book, The Codebreakers. The Codebreakers comprehensively chronicles the history of cryptography from ancient Egypt to the time of its writing. It is widely regarded as the best account of the history of cryptography up to its publication. Most of the editing, German translating, and insider contributions were from the American World War II cryptographer, Bradford Hardie III. William Crowell, the former deputy director of the National Security Agency, was quoted in Newsday as saying "Before he (Kahn) came along, the best you could do was buy an explanatory book that usually was too technical and terribly dull." Kahn, then a newspaper journalist, was contracted to write a book on cryptology in 1961. He began writing it part-time, at one point quitting his regular job to work on it full-time. The book was to include information on the National Security Agency (NSA), and according to the author James Bamford writing in 1982, the agency attempted to stop its publication, and considered various options, including publishing a negative review of Kahn's work in the press to discredit him. A committee of the United States Intelligence Board concluded that the book was "a possibly valuable support to foreign COMSEC [communications security] authorities" and recommended "further low-key actions as possible, but short of legal action, to discourage Mr. Kahn or his prospective publishers". Kahn's publisher, the Macmillan company, handed over the manuscript to the federal government for review without Kahn's permission on March 4, 1966. Kahn and Macmillan eventually agreed to remove some material from the manuscript, particularly concerning the relationship between the NSA and its British counterpart, the GCHQ. The Codebreakers was a finalist for the non-fiction Pulitzer Prize in 1968.

Hardcover. Condition: Near Fine. Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good. 1st Edition. First edition stated. Very good, if not very good plus or near fine hardback in very good, if not very good plus or near fine price-clipped dust jacket. Book has light, if not very light bumps to upper fore-edge corner of rear cover and to front cover at head of spine; a bookplate (5 inch by 4 inch) of previous owner on front pastedown; and additional minor, if not trivial signs of age/wear/previous use to book. Dust jacket has a light, if not very light crease running from head to heel of spine; A 2 inch closed tear to lower edge or rear spine fold; and minor additional wear to head and heel of spine, corners, edges and extremities.

Hardcover. Condition: Good. Dust Jacket Condition: Fair. First Printing [stated]. xvi, [2], 1164 pages. Footnotes. Illustrations. Bibliography. Notes to Text. Notes to Illustrations. Index. DJ has wear, tears soiling, and chips. The First Comprehensive History Of Secret Communication From Ancient Times To The Threshold Of Outer Space David Kahn (b. February 7, 1930) is a US historian, journalist and writer. He has written extensively on the history of cryptography and military intelligence. Kahn's first published book, The Codebreakers - The Story of Secret Writing (1967), has been widely considered to be a definitive account of the history of cryptography. The Codebreakers was a finalist for the nonfiction Pulitzer Prize in 1968. Kahn has said he traces his interest in cryptography to reading Fletcher Pratt's Secret and Urgent as a boy. Kahn is a founding editor of the Cryptologia journal. In 1969, Kahn married Susanne Fiedler; they are now divorced. They have two sons, Oliver and Michael. He attended Bucknell University. After graduation, he worked as a reporter at Newsday for several years. He also served as an editor at the International Herald Tribune in Paris for two years in the 1960s. It was during this period that he wrote an article for the New York Times Magazine about two defectors from the National Security Agency. This article was the origin of his monumental book, The Codebreakers. The Codebreakers comprehensively chronicles the history of cryptography from ancient Egypt to the time of its writing. It is widely regarded as the best account of the history of cryptography up to its publication. Most of the editing, German translating, and insider contributions were from the American World War II cryptographer, Bradford Hardie III. William Crowell, the former deputy director of the National Security Agency, was quoted in Newsday as saying "Before he (Kahn) came along, the best you could do was buy an explanatory book that usually was too technical and terribly dull." Kahn, then a newspaper journalist, was contracted to write a book on cryptology in 1961. He began writing it part-time, at one point quitting his regular job to work on it full-time. The book was to include information on the National Security Agency (NSA), and according to the author James Bamford writing in 1982, the agency attempted to stop its publication, and considered various options, including publishing a negative review of Kahn's work in the press to discredit him. A committee of the United States Intelligence Board concluded that the book was "a possibly valuable support to foreign COMSEC [communications security] authorities" and recommended "further low-key actions as possible, but short of legal action, to discourage Mr. Kahn or his prospective publishers". Kahn's publisher, the Macmillan company, handed over the manuscript to the federal government for review without Kahn's permission on March 4, 1966. Kahn and Macmillan eventually agreed to remove some material from the manuscript, particularly concerning the relationship between the NSA and its British counterpart, the GCHQ. The magnificent, unrivaled history of codes and ciphersâ"how they're made, how they're broken, and the many and fascinating roles they've played since the dawn of civilization in war, business, diplomacy, and espionage. Man has created codes to keep secrets and has broken codes to learn those secrets since the time of the Pharaohs. For 4,000 years, fierce battles have been waged between codemakers and codebreakers, and the story of these battles is civilization's secret history, the hidden account of how wars were won and lost, diplomatic intrigues foiled, business secrets stolen, governments ruined, computers hacked. From the XYZ Affair to the Dreyfus Affair, from the Gallic War to the Persian Gulf, from Druidic runes and the kaballah to outer space, from the Zimmermann telegram to Enigma to the Manhattan Project, codebreaking has shaped the course of human events to an extent beyond any easy reckoning. Once a government monopoly, cryptology today touches everybody. It secures the Internet, keeps e-mail private, maintains the integrity of cash machine transactions, and scrambles TV signals on unpaid-for channels. David Kahn's The Codebreakers takes the measure of what codes and codebreaking have meant in human history in a single comprehensive account, astonishing in its scope and enthralling in its execution. Hailed upon first publication as a book likely to become the definitive work of its kind, The Codebreakers has more than lived up to that prediction: it remains unsurpassed. The Codebreakers is the skeleton key to a thousand thrilling true stories of intrigue, mystery, and adventure. It is a masterpiece of the historian's art.

Hardcover. Condition: Near Fine. Dust Jacket Condition: Near Fine. First edition. Large 8vo. [8], ix-xvi, [2], 1-1164 pp. Quarter blue cloth over maroon cloth with gold and black lettering on the spine; purple topstain. Price of $14.95 on the front flap of the dust jacket. Jacket designed by S. Zagorski. Illustrated with several in-text diagrams, full-page charts, and with double-sided plates of black and white photographs. A small concavity to the spine and a small address label on the front pastedown.

1st edition chipped dust jacket Near Fine octavo xvi + 1164pp., b/w pls., bibliog., notes (162pp.), index, Comprehensive history of secret communication. Full unabridged edition. Scarce & desirable. This copy has been annotated & extra-illustrated by the previous owner, a Hungarian historian. 11 additional photos tipped-in.