The Code Book: The Science of Secrecy from Ancient Egypt to Quantum Cryptography

I started reading this out of spite, it being recommended to a person I was speaking with, but I was being pointedly ignored by the person who was recommending it. So booyah, I immediately went out and read it. A detailed history of cryptography through time, from Mary Queen of Scots' downfall due to broken code (messages were smuggled in via beer kegs), through Alan Turing during WWII and current computer encryption. Parts of the book went overboard in detail, but overall an interesting read. Everything from cracking the Enigma (Germans insisted on repeating the 3 letter key, so that provided a pattern to break), through the Rosetta Stone (hieroglyphics, Linear B- a dialect of Greek that had become unknonwn, and Greek)