Code Girls: The Untold Story of the American Women Code Breakers of World… (original 2017; edição 2017)

This book was pretty fascinating, albeit a little too long. I found particularly interesting the information about the goings-on at the Fabyan estate, which I've visited. I could have lived without the chapter on love letters sent to Dot, which I found to be completely unnecessary. ( )

Interesting, and I liked getting glimpses into so many women's lives. But it also felt a bit flat for me because it didn't have an intersectional lens at all. I much prefer the style of books like [b: Hidden Figures|30840370|Hidden Figures The Untold True Story of Four African-American Women Who Helped Launch Our Nation into Space|Margot Lee Shetterly|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1474752658s/30840370.jpg|55627110] or even [b: Rise of the Rocket Girls|40363555|Rise of the Rocket Girls The Women Who Propelled Us, from Missiles to the Moon to Mars|Nathalia Holt|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1527969304s/40363555.jpg|45959896] and [b: The Girls of Atomic City|15801668|The Girls of Atomic City The Untold Story of the Women Who Helped Win World War II|Denise Kiernan|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1352912866s/15801668.jpg|21525054]. ( )

Not your typical book about cryptanalysis, which give the credit to just a few men, Code Girls focuses on the hundreds of girls, most recruited out of colleges, who went to Washington to do a job that no one could explain. After the war, the girls were told not to utter a single word to anyone about their role or how they did it. When the relevant documents were declassified, most of the women never got the word and took their story to their grave.
Based on hundreds of interviews with many of the surviving women and their families, the story comes out thru many vignettes, artfully woven to make a complete story from the Army and Navy decisions to expand the "code breaking" from just a few people and to recruit young women of good character with math and linguistic skills. The book gives only the sketchiest of details of the decrypting process, instead covers what the girls could talk about in letters and diaries, their daily lives living in the Washington DC area during the war. ( )

This book made me so happy. It's well-written and engaging, with very thorough documentation-- the best kind of non-fiction. ( )

Advanced Review Copy.... Book to be released in October.

The best way I can describe this book is to imagine wandering around a museum of Code Breaking during WWII and seeing different exhibits. You learn about what the codes were like and how they are formed, you then learn about some women who did were asked to do the work of code breaking, then you learn about architecture of the buildings they stayed in, then about different women and how they spent their of time.... and so forth. It is well written and interesting, but it seems disjointed at time as it switches focuses often and doesn't move chronologically.

So overall, a very interesting history about how cryptography in America is built on the backs of women, but rarely were recognized of that fact. ( )