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American Black Chamber (Bluejacket Books)
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by Herbert O. Yardley
Sales Rank: 544554
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Discount: 25 %
List Price: $18.95
$12.89
At Amazon
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Paperback: 375 pages
Publisher: US Naval Institute Press September 15, 2004
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1591149894
ISBN-13: 978-1591149897
Product Dimensions:
8.9 x 6 x 0.9 inches
Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
Book Description
This book is a classic in nonfiction literature. When published in 1931, The American Black Chamber was an instant sensation and quickly became a best-seller. Erle Stanley Gardner termed the book "one of the most interesting books I have ever read." For those interested in real-life spies, intelligence, breaking codes, and especially intrigue, The American Black Chamber is one of the most absorbing nonfiction books ever published.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Customer Reviews & Comments
It's great to see this classic book back in print. Yardley was, as they say, accustomed to luxury, and when fired in 1929 wrote this book on the breaking of foreign codes by the United States. (His firing is another story, when Hoover's secretary of state refused to continue the funding of the Black Chamber with the comment, Gentlemen do not read other people's mail.) Yardley had found a loophole in the law so that he couldn't be prosecuted, but boy did it annoy the Government. The book was a best seller, and started him or a career as an author. He wrote another four or five books on codes and another best seller called The Education of a Poker Player. The book is fascinating, well written and filled with stories of stealing code books, beautiful female spies. And better descriptions of how to break codes that I've seen in any of the other books on the history of code breaking (maybe because the codes in the 1920's were simpler minded than later Enigma machines). This book ties in very well with the new book The Reader of Gentlemens Mail.
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American Black Chamber (Bluejacket Books)
List Price: $18.95
Discount: 25 %
Available from Amazon
Price: $12.89
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