Alan Turing: The Enigma / A Biography (EX-LIBRARY FIRST, BUT IN A NEAR-FINE JACKET)

Hodges, Andrew

ISBN 10: 0091521300 / ISBN 13: 9780091521301

Edité par Burnett Books Limited, London, 1983

A propos de cet article

Bookplate to front pastedown states "The Library / Bolton Institute of Higher Education / Deane Campus, Deane Road, Bolton," overstamped "Withdrawn." There are also some library numbers in pen to copyright page, and small bar-code labels to FFE and rear pastedown. All (closed) page edges also bear library rubber-stamps, as does the title page. This volume looks very nice in its unclipped, "near-fine" original dust jacket, which was protected in an earlier library dust jacket protector which blessedly was NOT glued down. However, it appears to us that the blank Free Front Endpaper has been neatly cut out and discarded, leaving insufficient overlap of paper to properly repair the front hinge. The traditional means of securing this hinge (which is still holding) against further stress would be to run up a strip of archival white "library tape," but we have not done so. Copyright page states "First published 1983 by Burnett Books Limited / in association with the Hutchinson Publishing Group. . . London." Dust jacket front flap priced "L18-00 net / in UK only." Copies of this small first printing of the celebrated biography of the celebrated mathematical genius credited with breaking the World War Two German "Enigma" code -- but later bedeviled by his own countrymen for his unapologetic homosexuality -- are moderately hard-to-find. Basis for the 2014 film "The Imitation Game," starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Keira Knightley, which won an Oscar for "Best Adapted Screenplay." The author teaches mathematics at Oxford. Alan Turing ( (1912-1954) contributed enormously to winning the war against the U-boat, largely invented the modern electronic computer, and -- (despite his war service) was arrested, stripped of his security clearance, and forced to undergo humiliating "treatment" for his homosexuality -- committing suicide at age 42. Totals 587 pp. including index. Reduced from $600.

N° de réf. du vendeur 009031

Détails bibliographiques

• Titre: Alan Turing: The Enigma / A Biography (EX-LIBRARY FIRST, BUT IN A NEAR-FINE JACKET)
• Éditeur: Burnett Books Limited, London
• Date de parution: 1983
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN à 10 chiffres: 0091521300
• ISBN à 13 chiffres: 9780091521301
• Reliure: Hardcover
• Édition: 1st Edition
• État de l'article: Good
• État de la jaquette: Near Fine
• Catalogues du vendeur:
  • Books-Into-Film
  • Gay Interest
  • Math

A propos de ce titre

Quatrième de couverture

'A first-rate presentation of the life of a first-rate scientific mind...it is hard to imagine a more thoughtful and warm biography than this one'

Douglas Hofstadter, New York Times Book Review

Alan Turing was the extraordinary Cambridge mathematician who masterminded the

cracking of the German Enigma ciphers and transformed the Second World War. But his vision went far beyond this crucial achievement. Before the war he had formulated the concept of the universal machine, and in 1945 he turned this into the first design for a digital computer.

Turing's far-sighted plans for the digital era forged ahead into a vision for Artificial Intelligence. However, in 1952 his homosexuality rendered him a criminal and he was subjected to humiliating treatment. In 1954, aged 41, Alan Turing committed suicide and one of Britain's greatest scientific minds was lost.

'One of the finest scientific biographies I've ever read: authoritative, superbly researched, deeply sympathetic and beautifully told'

Sylvia Nasar, author of A Beautiful Mind

'Andrew Hodges' book is of exemplary scholarship and sympathy. Intimate, perceptive and insightful, it's also the most readable biography I've picked up in some time'

Time Out