The author, Dr. Stephen Twigge, is a historian at the National Archives, and definitely seems to know what he's talking about. The book is very well researched, moderately well annotated (especially for such a short book), and written in layman accessible language which is never dry or boring. The illustrations and images are the main attraction and the author does a wonderful job of explaining and illuminating without pedantry. I really enjoyed his commentary and got much more out of the illustrations by way of his explanations.
I have been a cryptography nerd since I was a little kid and grew up a maths/coding fanatic, and Turing was an early hero of mine. The author does a decent job of explaining some complex early computer science concepts which Turing was exploring, an overview of Enigma, as well as giving a brief and dispassionate biography of his life and tragic death in 1954. I really enjoyed seeing facsimile pictures of some of Turing's notes and research papers; it gave me a little chill to see notations in his own hand in pen.
The book includes a cross referenced index, bibliography, and notes. Very well illustrated and engagingly written. Four stars. This would be a superlative choice for readers interested in history. I learnt quite a lot and enjoyed paging through and seeing the documents and notes.
Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.
No comments:
Post a Comment