Look for 'The Code Book : The Evolution of Secrecy from Mary, Queen of Scots to Quantum Cryptography' from Simon Singh. I flicked through it last night and comments on Amazon.com suggest that it is a good historical look at codes. Simon wrote 'Fermat's Last Theorem'; a book that made the search for mathematical proof read like a detective novel! FLT comes Highly Recommended. Reviews suggest that the Code Book is in a similar narritive style and that it does contain some technical mathematics. It is a history not a textbook but it might have some methods in appendices, as FLT does.
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Look for 'The Code Book : The Evolution of Secrecy from Mary, Queen of Scots to Quantum Cryptography' from Simon Singh. I flicked through it last night and comments on Amazon.com suggest that it is a good historical look at codes. Simon wrote 'Fermat's Last Theorem'; a book that made the search for mathematical proof read like a detective novel! FLT comes Highly Recommended. Reviews suggest that the Code Book is in a similar narritive style and that it does contain some technical mathematics. It is a history not a textbook but it might have some methods in appendices, as FLT does.