The art and science of code-making and code-breaking is driven both by the risk inherent in an adversary's ability to read an intercepted communication and the technology available to mitigate that threat efficiently and cost-effectively. This is true both for today's computer-driven cryptography and cryptanalysis and the simpler, yet no less vital codes and ciphers used in the past. In "Masked Dispatches: Cryptograms and Cryptology in American History, 1775-1900," the beginnings of American cryptography are portrayed as rooted in the nation's origin in revolutionary conspiracy. Although the...

The Voynich manuscript, often dubbed the world s most mysterious manuscript, is a remarkable conglomeration, written in an unknown script and language and profusely illustrated with carefully rendered images of unidentified plants, enigmatic astronomical drawings, and puzzling human figures. Known to have existed since the late 16th century, when it was owned by the physician of that most enigmatic of rulers, the Emperor Rudolf II of Austria, it has been labeled variously as a magical manual, a herbarium, and a hoax. Both scholarly researchers and individual enthusiasts have linked this...