Seizing the Enigma
The Race to Break the German U-Boats Codes, 1939–1943
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Narrated by:
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Bernard Mayes
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By:
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David Kahn
About this listen
For almost four desperate years, between 1939 and 1943, British and American navies fought a savage, losing battle against German submarine wolf packs. The Allies might never have turned the tide of that historic battle without an intelligence coup. The race to break the German U-boat codes is one of the last great untold stories of World War II.
David Kahn, the world’s leading historian of cryptology, brings to life this tense, behind-the-scenes drama for the first time. Seizing the Enigma provides the definitive account of how British and American code breakers fought a war of wits against Nazi naval communications and helped lead the Allies to victory in the crucial Battle of the Atlantic.
©1991 David Khan (P)1994 Blackstone Audio, Inc.Listeners also enjoyed...
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Too much like a text book
- By Randall on 01-03-18
By: Robert Leckie
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Quantum
- Einstein, Bohr, and the Great Debate about the Nature of Reality
- By: Manjit Kumar
- Narrated by: Ray Porter
- Length: 14 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Quantum theory is weird. As Niels Bohr said, if you aren’t shocked by quantum theory, you don’t really understand it. For most people, quantum theory is synonymous with mysterious, impenetrable science. And in fact for many years it was equally baffling for scientists themselves. In this tour de force of science history, Manjit Kumar gives a dramatic and superbly written account of this fundamental scientific revolution.
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Biographic facts not explanations.
- By Terezia on 07-11-11
By: Manjit Kumar
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Enigma
- By: Robert Harris
- Narrated by: Ole Rabendorf
- Length: 13 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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Spændingsroman om englændernes arbejde i 1943 med at bryde den kode tyskerne anvender i u-bådskommunikationen. Menneskeliv er på spil, arbejdet foregår under tidspres og de involverede har mange hemmeligheder.
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Danish version!
- By Ramachandra Vemulapalli on 07-21-18
By: Robert Harris
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The Medici
- Power, Money, and Ambition in the Italian Renaissance
- By: Paul Strathern
- Narrated by: Derek Perkins
- Length: 16 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Against the background of an age that saw the rebirth of ancient and classical learning, Paul Strathern explores the intensely dramatic rise and fall of the Medici family in Florence as well as the Italian Renaissance, which they did so much to sponsor and encourage. Interwoven into the narrative are the lives of many of the great Renaissance artists with whom the Medici had dealings, including Leonardo, Michelangelo, and Donatello as well as scientists like Galileo and Pico della Mirandola.
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Fun Story Bad History
- By Elizabeth Barrett on 05-09-16
By: Paul Strathern
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The Twilight War
- The Secret History of America's Thirty-Year Conflict with Iran
- By: David Crist
- Narrated by: Peter Berkrot
- Length: 25 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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For the past three decades, the United States and Iran have been engaged in an unacknowledged secret war. This conflict has frustrated five American presidents, divided administrations, and repeatedly threatened to bring the two nations to the brink of open warfare. Drawing upon unparalleled access to senior officials and key documents of several US administrations, David Crist, a senior historian in the federal government, breaks new ground in virtually every section of The Twilight War.
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Most authoritative book on conflict on Iran, hands down.
- By David Free on 07-14-19
By: David Crist
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The Soul of Genius
- Marie Curie, Albert Einstein, and the Meeting That Changed the Course of Science
- By: Jeffrey Orens
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 10 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1911, some of the greatest minds in science convened at the First Solvay Conference in Physics, a meeting like no other. Almost half of the attendees had won or would go on to win the Nobel Prize. Over the course of those few days, these minds began to realize that classical physics was about to give way to quantum theory, a seismic shift in our history and how we understand not just our world, but the universe.
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Great book, but dissatisfied
- By Andrea Mendez on 11-25-22
By: Jeffrey Orens
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Challenge for the Pacific
- Guadalcanal: The Turning Point of the War
- By: Robert Leckie
- Narrated by: Kevin Foley
- Length: 13 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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From the Japanese soldiers' carefully calculated - and ultimately foiled - attempt to build a series of impregnable island forts on the ground to the tireless efforts of the Americans who struggled against a tenacious adversary and the temperature and terrain of the island itself, Robert Leckie captures the loneliness, the agony, and the heat of 24-hour-a-day fighting on Guadalcanal.
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Too much like a text book
- By Randall on 01-03-18
By: Robert Leckie
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Quantum
- Einstein, Bohr, and the Great Debate about the Nature of Reality
- By: Manjit Kumar
- Narrated by: Ray Porter
- Length: 14 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Quantum theory is weird. As Niels Bohr said, if you aren’t shocked by quantum theory, you don’t really understand it. For most people, quantum theory is synonymous with mysterious, impenetrable science. And in fact for many years it was equally baffling for scientists themselves. In this tour de force of science history, Manjit Kumar gives a dramatic and superbly written account of this fundamental scientific revolution.
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Biographic facts not explanations.
- By Terezia on 07-11-11
By: Manjit Kumar
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Enigma
- By: Robert Harris
- Narrated by: Ole Rabendorf
- Length: 13 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
-
Story
Spændingsroman om englændernes arbejde i 1943 med at bryde den kode tyskerne anvender i u-bådskommunikationen. Menneskeliv er på spil, arbejdet foregår under tidspres og de involverede har mange hemmeligheder.
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Danish version!
- By Ramachandra Vemulapalli on 07-21-18
By: Robert Harris
-
The Medici
- Power, Money, and Ambition in the Italian Renaissance
- By: Paul Strathern
- Narrated by: Derek Perkins
- Length: 16 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Against the background of an age that saw the rebirth of ancient and classical learning, Paul Strathern explores the intensely dramatic rise and fall of the Medici family in Florence as well as the Italian Renaissance, which they did so much to sponsor and encourage. Interwoven into the narrative are the lives of many of the great Renaissance artists with whom the Medici had dealings, including Leonardo, Michelangelo, and Donatello as well as scientists like Galileo and Pico della Mirandola.
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Fun Story Bad History
- By Elizabeth Barrett on 05-09-16
By: Paul Strathern
What listeners say about Seizing the Enigma
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- John Ray
- 03-12-21
This time free is good !
Excellent history of history’s most important information war. This was well read and very interesting !
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- Barry J. Marshall
- 06-21-15
Techno Thriller but it is a True Story
The story of how the enigma machine was conceived and developed after WW1 then perfected by the German Navy in WW2. Then how the Poles almost cracked it before moving to Britain where a massive secret program at Blechley Park and throughout the Navy ultimately destroyed the German submarine packs and won the war.
The best thing about this book is the way it describes how the machines were constructed and how the messages were decrypted. Ten times better than the movies I've see on the subject. I want to read more from David Kahn but only after I have built an enigma machine myself.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Robert from Brookline
- 03-28-23
Fascinating Book
This is a very interesting book with the entire background of the British efforts to break the code to the Enigma machines.
The one problem with the book is that there are many pages explaining how to set up and operate the enigma machine - this is interesting only to a very limited audience.
Other than that I recommend it highly.
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- Maui Mike
- 01-03-22
Fascinating story requiring patient audience
This is a VERY detailed history of a very convoluted military technology that evolved and matured over several decades, not just the period of 1939 through 1943. As such, the author chose to include at times bewilderingly complex, long-winded, and dry technical content that is nonetheless vital to his audience’s understanding of the momentous contribution of the decryption of the Enigma cyphers to the Allied victory in the Battle of the Atlantic. While the narrative contains several moments of wartime drama, this is a work intended for an audience of serious serious students of military history, as well as academics looking for source materials. Bernard Mayes’ reading style is clear and of an appropriate pace for such an information-dense subject, making this book an ideal candidate for an audiobook. This reviewer probably would not have attempted to read this on his own!
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- CarefulShopper1
- 08-24-16
Fascinating Story - I learned a lot
Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?
I would definitely recommend this book.
It tells the story behind the challenge to break the German U-Boat communications that was the key to the Allies reducing the toll of sunken ships and associated loss of lives and materials critical to fighting and ultimately winning the war. It provides interesting background stories of the players including several unsung heroes (including the Poles) that led to the ultimate success in the Battle of the Atlantic. Unlike other books and TV documentaries I've read/seen that have told a rather simplistic story about cracking Enigma (which apparently didn't actually occur in a sustained way until the very end of the war), this book tells the more nuanced story of the hard detailed grunt work and multiple approaches that gradually (and periodically) improved the ability of the allies to get more timely and accurate information on German plans, even as the the codes and methods evolved.
Particularly fascinating to me was seeing how successes were often the result of taking advantage in weaknesses in well-intentioned German implementation procedures rather than in Enigma itself. For example, the author points out that the German guidance that a code should never repeat the same character -- guidance that is usually applied to modern passwords to this day -- actually weakened the overall strength of the encryption by eliminating an entire letter from consideration. As another example, the practice of sometimes send out the exact same message both to Navy warships using Enigma and other vessels using a lesser (i.e. cracked) coding method would provide a template for reverse-engineering the enigma key (another practice that would still apply today).
Bernard Mayes' has a nice voice with an even cadence that I generally found enjoyable. Much of the book is telling a highly suspenseful story, and in these sections his even cadence let's the natural excitement of the book shine through.
However, as noted by other reviewers, there are places where the book goes into fairly dense levels of detail, and in these sections Mr. Mayes' even cadence can be very slow going. Had I been reading the book in paper format I would have just skimmed these denser sections, going to re-read any that I found interesting or useful, but that's not possible in the audio format. And, I didn't want to just skip these sections as the background being provided is important to the overall understanding of the book.
Then I got the idea to mimic skimming by using the Audible Apps Narration Speed control and the Jump Back button. When set to about 1.2-1.3x speed, the reading still sounded natural but went by at a fast enough pace that kept my interest. And whenever a section proved interesting but I felt I might have missed something, I would hit the Jump Back button to re-listen to 30 or 60 seconds. Then, when the story resumed, I would go back to normal 1x speed.
All-in-all, it's a great story that's well told and provides lessons that are still useful today. I highly recommend it.
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- Casey
- 01-11-24
Almost Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Enigma
Fantastic book, exhaustive research and filled with great detail. I also love this reader’s style; nice and understated.
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- Bronwen
- 07-12-15
A somewhat slow narrative
The Enigma story is like something out of a thriller- the author recounts several daring exploits in the quest for Enigma, but they fall a little flat. I think part of the problem is the narrator; I have several other books narrated by him which I quite enjoyed but his lack on inflection in this recording is disappointing. I still enjoyed the book, but I wasn't able to just listen all the way through as is my habit.
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3 people found this helpful
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- MAC24211
- 02-19-21
Loved it, incredible detail.
Way more information than I ever knew about the Enigma. An excellent book for the history buff.
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- Dr. Larry Leibrock
- 10-19-20
Great Story
Very well done. Exciting plot, wonderful narrative. This is a great value for those interested in history.
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- WD
- 08-17-20
This is the COMPLETE history of the Enigma Code Breakers.
I thought I knew this history but no I learned I did know even half of the story. Great read, deep research and a superb performance. It can get a bit wonky and detailed. I’m no math whiz and I stayed interested and engaged. Well Done!
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2 people found this helpful