Alan Turing, the Enigma

Prof. Andrew Hodges, PhD, teaches at the Mathematical Institute at University of Oxford. He is Senior Research Fellow Fellow and Tutor in Mathematics, Wadham College

List of Plates ix
Foreword by Douglas Hofstadter xi
Preface xv
PART ONE: THE LOGICAL
1 Esprit de Corps to 13 February 1930 3
2 The Spirit of Truth to 14 April 1936 60
3 New Men to 3 September 1939 141
4 The Relay Race to 10 November 1942 202
BRIDGE PASSAGE to 1 April 1943 305
PART TWO: THE PHYSICAL
5 Running Up to 2 September 1945 325
6 Mercury Delayed to 2 October 1948 394
7 The Greenwood Tree to 7 February 1952 491
8 On the Beach to 7 June 1954 574
Postscript 665
Author's Note 666
Notes 680
Acknowledgements 714
Index 715

Scrupulous and enthralling.--A. O. Scott, New York Times

An almost perfect match of biographer and subject. . . . [A] great book. Ray Monk, Guardian

A first-class contribution to history and an exemplary work of biography. I. J. Good, Nature

On the face of it, a richly detailed 500-page biography of a mathematical genius and analysis of his ideas, might seem a daunting proposition. But fellow mathematician and author Hodges has acutely clear and often extremely moving insight into the humanity behind the leaping genius that helped to crack the Germans' Enigma codes during World War II and bring about the dawn of the computer age. . . . This melancholy story is transfigured into something else: an exploration of the relationship between machines and the soul and a full-throated celebration of Turing's brilliance, unselfconscious quirkiness and bravery in a hostile age. Sinclair McKay, Wall Street Journal

Turing's rehabilitation from over a quarter-century's embarrassed silence was largely the result of Andrew Hodges's superb biography, Alan Turing: The Enigma (1983; reissued with a new introduction in 2012). Hodges examined available primary sources and interviewed surviving witnesses to elucidate Turing's multiple dimensions. A mathematician, Hodges ably explained Turing's intellectual accomplishments with insight, and situated them within their wider historical contexts. He also empathetically explored the centrality of Turing's sexual identity to his thought and life in a persuasive rather than reductive way... Michael Saler, Times Literary Supplement

Andrew Hodges' 1983 book Alan Turing: The Enigma, is the indispensable guide to Turing's life and work and one of the finest biographies of a scientific genius ever written. Michael Hiltzik, Los Angeles Times

One of the finest scientific biographies ever written. Jim Holt, New Yorker