Cryptonomicon.

Superficially a sprawling mass of loosely interconnected anecdotes forming a combination of historical fiction and contemporary techno-thriller the underlying theme is a detailed explanation of the fundamental events of the modern age told in a semi-allegorical and erudite style.

The central theses of Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon that

1. The main pivotal event of modern history was world war two.
2. This was not - as we naively perceive a war decided on logistic or technological grounds
   but rather an informational war - decided essentially by cryptography.
3. With the ULTRA decrypts from Enigma and Purple decrypts in the Pacific  the Allies knew exactly where forces were concentrated, and where they were weakest. The allies could pick of hitherto invulnerable U-boats with impunity, work around massed concentrations of forces in the Pacific making them effectively irrelevant and incapacitate the most brilliant and far sited Axis generals - those who could have turned the tables - simply by knowing exactly where they were and when they would be there. Thus:
   • In the Battle of Midway, from June 4 to 6, 1942, the Japanese lost four carriers to the American loss of one, and 3,500 men to only around 300 American dead. The decrypts meant that the USN forces were able to, catching the Japanese carriers just as they were rearming their aircraft for a strike against the U.S. carriers, a factor which played a major role in the magnitude of the American victory.
   • In April 1943, U.S. intelligence intercepted and decrypted reports of the tour. Sixteen American P-38 aircraft of the 339th Fighter Squadron,  ambushed the most outstanding Japanese naval commander of World War II,  Isoroku Yamamoto in the air. Yamamoto was apparently killed in the air by a machine-gun bullet which struck his head.
   • Erwin Rommel staff car was strafed by an RCAF Spitfire on July 17, 1944,
4. The development of Colossus, considered to be the fore-runner of the electronic programmable digital computer was driven by these events - thus heralding Stephenson's other pivotal event of modern history.

Back to DRM book reviews

Search Now: