Sign-In
Cart
The Woman Who Smashed Codes: A True Story of Love, Spies, and the Unlikely Heroine Who Outwitted America's Enemies
Hardcover
Biographies GeneralHistorical FiguresInternational Relations
Currently unavailable to order
Please enter your email and a message will be sent to you when this product becomes available on our website.
ISBN13: 9780062430489
Publisher: Dey Street Books
Published: Sep 26 2017
Pages: 464
Weight: 1.40
Height: 1.50 Width: 6.20 Depth: 9.20
Language: English
National Bestseller
NPR Best Book of the Year
Not all superheroes wear capes, and Elizebeth Smith Friedman should be the subject of a future Wonder Woman movie. --The New York Times
Joining the ranks of Hidden Figures and In the Garden of Beasts, the incredible true story of the greatest codebreaking duo that ever lived, an American woman and her husband who invented the modern science of cryptology together and used it to confront the evils of their time, solving puzzles that unmasked Nazi spies and helped win World War II.
In 1916, at the height of World War I, brilliant Shakespeare expert Elizebeth Smith went to work for an eccentric tycoon on his estate outside Chicago. The tycoon had close ties to the U.S. government, and he soon asked Elizebeth to apply her language skills to an exciting new venture: code-breaking. There she met the man who would become her husband, groundbreaking cryptologist William Friedman. Though she and Friedman are in many ways the Adam and Eve of the NSA, Elizebeth's story, incredibly, has never been told.
In The Woman Who Smashed Codes, Jason Fagone chronicles the life of this extraordinary woman, who played an integral role in our nation's history for forty years. After World War I, Smith used her talents to catch gangsters and smugglers during Prohibition, then accepted a covert mission to discover and expose Nazi spy rings that were spreading like wildfire across South America, advancing ever closer to the United States. As World War II raged, Elizebeth fought a highly classified battle of wits against Hitler's Reich, cracking multiple versions of the Enigma machine used by German spies. Meanwhile, inside an Army vault in Washington, William worked furiously to break Purple, the Japanese version of Enigma--and eventually succeeded, at a terrible cost to his personal life.
Fagone unveils America's code-breaking history through the prism of Smith's life, bringing into focus the unforgettable events and colorful personalities that would help shape modern intelligence. Blending the lively pace and compelling detail that are the hallmarks of Erik Larson's bestsellers with the atmosphere and intensity of The Imitation Game, The Woman Who Smashed Codes is page-turning popular history at its finest.
1 different editions
Also available
The Woman Who Smashed Codes: A True Story of Love, Spies, and the Unlikely Heroine Who Outwitted America's Enemies
Fagone, Jason
Paperback
Also in
Historical Figures
Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy: A Righteous Gentile vs. the Third Reich
Metaxas, Eric
Paperback
The Rise of Thomas Cromwell: Power and Politics in the Reign of Henry VIII, 1485-1534
Everett, Michael
Paperback
The Lost Founder: James Wilson and the Forgotten Fight for a People's Constitution
Wegman, Jesse
Hardcover
The Lost Empire of Emanuel Nobel: Romanovs, Revolutionaries, and the Forgotten Titan Who Fueled the World
Brunt, Douglas
Hardcover
America's Founding Son: John Quincy Adams, from President to Political Maverick
Crawford, Bob
Hardcover
Thomas Jefferson Survives: American Independence in His Time and Ours
Cogliano, Francis D.
Onuf, Peter S.
Hardcover
Rebel of the Regency: The Scandalous Saga of Caroline of Brunswick, Britain's Queen Without a Crown
Foster, Ann
Hardcover
The Hiding Place: The Triumphant True Story of Corrie Ten Boom
Boom, Corrie Ten
Sherrill, John
Paperback
Biography of a Dangerous Idea: A New History of Race from Louis XIV to Thomas Jefferson
Curran, Andrew S.
Hardcover
The Nine: The True Story of a Band of Women Who Survived the Worst of Nazi Germany
Strauss, Gwen
Paperback
A Thousand Shall Fall: The Electrifying Story of a Soldier and His Family Who Dared to Practice Their Faith in Hitler's Germany
Mundy, Susi Hasel
Paperback
A Librarian's War: The Man Who Fought World War II with Books and Brought the Joy of Reading to Millions
Manning, Molly Guptill
Hardcover
Operation Sparrow: The Incredible True Story of the Spies Who Tricked Hitler and Won the War
Bell, Jason
Hardcover
The Mysterious Case of Rudolf Diesel: Genius, Power, and Deception on the Eve of World War I
Brunt, Douglas
Paperback
Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America
Kendi, Ibram X.
Paperback
Medium Raw: A Bloody Valentine to the World of Food and the People Who Cook
Bourdain, Anthony
Paperback
The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary
Winchester, Simon
Paperback
The Confessions of Samuel Pepys: Private Revelations from Britain's Most Famed Diarist
de la Bédoyère, Guy
Hardcover
The Pursuit of Happiness: How Classical Writers on Virtue Inspired the Lives of the Founders and Defined America
Rosen, Jeffrey
Paperback
Solo and Together: Charles and Anne Morrow Lindbergh, an Enigmatic Life and Marriage
Hansen, James R.
Hardcover
Warriors Don't Cry: A Searing Memoir of the Battle to Integrate Little Rock's Central High
Beals, Melba Pattillo
Paperback
American Prometheus (Pulitzer Prize Winner): The Inspiration for the Major Motion Picture Oppenheimer
Sherwin, Martin J.
Bird, Kai
Paperback
Stradivari's Genius: Five Violins, One Cello, and Three Centuries of Enduring Perfection
Faber, Toby
Paperback
The First Fascist: The Sensational Life and Dark Legacy of the Marquis de Morès
Luzzatto, Sergio
Hardcover
The Widow Clicquot: The Story of a Champagne Empire and the Woman Who Ruled It
Mazzeo, Tilar J.
Paperback
The Power Broker (Pulitzer Prize Winner): Robert Moses and the Fall of New York
Caro, Robert A.
Hardcover
The Man Behind the Cane: Preston Brooks, Political Violence, and the Road to the Civil War
Quigley, Paul
Hardcover
The Greatest Beer Run Ever: A Memoir of Friendship, Loyalty, and War
Donohue, John Chick
Molloy, J. T.
Paperback
No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II
Goodwin, Doris Kearns
Paperback
The Girls of Atomic City: The Untold Story of the Women Who Helped Win World War II
Kiernan, Denise
Paperback
Tomboy Bride, 50th Anniversary Edition: One Woman's Personal Account of Life in Mining Camps of the West
Backus, Harriet Fish
Paperback
Miracles in American History, Volume Two: Amazing Faith That Shaped the Nation: Adapted from William J. Federer's American Minute [With 2 Paperbacks]
Federer, Susie
Federer, William J.
Paperback
The Book of Charlie: Wisdom from the Remarkable American Life of a 109-Year-Old Man
Von Drehle, David
Paperback
The Faithful Executioner: Life and Death, Honor and Shame in the Turbulent Sixteenth Century
Harrington, Joel F.
Paperback
Master of the Senate (Pulitzer Prize Winner): The Years of Lyndon Johnson III
Caro, Robert A.
Paperback
The Forsaken Founder: Gouverneur Morris, the Unsung Patriot Who Wrote the Constitution, Stood Up to Slavery, and Survived the Reign of Terror
Greenberger, Scott S.
Hardcover
The Improbable Victoria Woodhull: Suffrage, Free Love, and the First Woman to Run for President
Collinsworth, Eden
Hardcover