In his first book since the bestselling Fermat's Enigma , Simon Singh offers the first sweeping history of encryption, tracing its evolution and revealing the dramatic effects codes have had on wars, nations, and individual lives. From Mary, Queen of Scots, trapped by her own code, to the Navajo Code Talkers who helped the Allies win World War II, to the incredible (and incredibly simple) logisitical breakthrough that made Internet commerce secure, The Code Book tells the story of the most powerful intellectual weapon ever known: secrecy.

Throughout the text are clear technological and mathematical explanations, and portrayals of the remarkable personalities who wrote and broke the world's most difficult codes. Accessible, compelling, and remarkably far-reaching, this book will forever alter your view of history, what drives it, and how private that e-mail you just sent really is.

西蒙·辛格，出生于英国南部萨默赛特郡，是印度旁遮普遗民后裔，曾在伦敦帝国学院学习物理，获得剑桥大学粒子物理学博士学位。前BBC资深节目制作人，其制作的《地平线：费马大定理》获得英国电影学院奖，同名科普书成为畅销书。《码书》是作者又一部心血之作，也是BBC系列专题《保密的科学》的底本，博得世界性声誉。

译者刘燕芬，台湾师范大学英语系毕业。曾任国中英语教师，现旅居德国，从事中-德、中-英文之笔译与口译，并教授中文。