“Much of the history of cryptology of this time is a patchwork, a crazy quilt of unrelated items, sprouting, flourishing, withering. Only toward the Western Renaissance does the accreting knowledge begin to build up a momentum. The story of cryptology during these years is, in other words, exactly the story of mankind.”

“Much of the history of cryptology of this time is a patchwork, a crazy quilt of unrelated items, sprouting, flourishing, withering. Only toward the Western Renaissance does the accreting knowledge begin to build up a momentum. The story of cryptology during these years is, in other words, exactly the story of mankind.”

— David Kahn