The Code Book traces the history of cryptography from its recorded inception in Roman times up through to the current applications as of it’s publication date circa 2000. All of the chapters held my interest and were riveting other than the, necessary, latter chapter on the the effects of encryption on US politics but it was Simon’s chapters on deciphering the Enigma code and ancient languages such as Egyptian Hieroglyphs and Linear B that I found most interesting.
Simon didn’t just discuss how different methods of encryption or encoding worked, but also used historical events to demonstrate their use and importance, adding an extra dimension to the book and making it thoroughly entertaining as well as informative.