From the spectacular achievements of Bletchley Park to a thousand years of codebreaking history – through the Minoans, the Kama Sutra and the Romans to the Tudor court and the 16th century Vatican – bestselling author Sinclair McKay brings us 50 Codes that Changed the World.

There have been secret codes since before the Old Testament, and there were secret codes in the Old Testament too. Almost as soon as writing was invented, so too were the devious means to hide messages and keep them under the wraps of secrecy. From antique manuscripts whose codes might hold prophecies of doom to the modern realm of quantum mechanics, Sinclair will reveal how a few concealed words could help to win wars, spark revolutions and even change the faces of great nations.

50 Codes that Changed the World is the complete guide to the hidden world of codebreaking, with opportunities for you to see if you could have cracked some of the trickiest puzzles and lip-chewing codes ever created.

About Sinclair McKay
Sinclair McKay is a bestselling author and social historian. He is the author of the Sunday Times bestseller Bletchley Park Brainteasers as well as the bestselling Secret Life of Bletchley Park, which together have sold over 400,000 copies.

He has authored many other books including Berlin: Love and Loss in the City that Shaped a Century, Dresden: The Fire and the Darkness and Secret Britain. He writes for the Spectator and the Telegraph and spends much of his life eyebrow-deep in dusty archives! He lives in east London.