The Secret Codebreakers
- Author Sarah Valentine
- Narrator Janina Edwards
- Publisher Little, Brown Book Group
- Publish Date 4 June 2026
- Run Time 9 hours and 54 minutes
- Format Audio
- Genre History.
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What to expect
This is the shocking true story of the Black American codebreaking unit whose top-secret work led directly to the end of the Cold War.
Facing the global threat of a rising Communist world power in the aftermath of World War II, the US employed hundreds of Black Americans to speed read Russian communications and gather essential information on the US's most dangerous nuclear rival.
The result was the creation of a segregated civilian codebreaking unit known as the Traffic Processing Division - The Plantation. Despite wage discrimination, gruelling hours and harsh conditions, the Plantation's 100 college-educated Black women made invaluable breakthroughs in United States' Soviet intelligence, even as the backlash against civil rights eroded their democratic freedoms at home.
Sarah Valentine tells their remarkable story in full for the first time. Paying long overdue tribute to these little-known Black cryptologists' critical contributions to national security during the civil rights era and the Cold War.
'With relentless research and electric storytelling, Sarah Valentine restores the erased Black cryptologists who powered U.S. codebreaking from WWII through the Korean War. Urgent, revelatory, and impossible to ignore, Decoding the Devil unveils both the uncomfortable truths and the inspiring histories that form the foundation of our intelligence community' - Nathalia Holt, New York Times bestselling author of Rise of the Rocket Girls and Wise Gals
'A thought-provoking exploration of the lives and work of the largely forgotten, undervalued, and little-acknowledged Black (and mostly female) cryptologists who contributed to this nation's intelligence success during World War II and the early Cold War. These contributions were made despite physically uncomfortable and segregated workspaces and assignments far below their education and capabilities. Sarah Valentine tells a fascinating tale, deftly weaving the cryptologic work into the social and political constraints of the times' - Betsy Rohaly Smoot, author of Parker Hitt: The Father of American Military Cryptology
'This book shows us the seams and man-making of a patriotic narrative usually sold to us as divine. Like Zora Neal Hurston loves us, Sarah Valentine loves us enough to tell the truth about our humanity inside of purposefully inhumane American institutions' - Steven Dunn, author of Water & Power
| Author | Sarah Valentine |
|---|---|
| Narrator | Janina Edwards |
| Duration | 9 hours and 54 minutes |
| Release Date | |
| ISBN | 9781405557733 |
| Format | Audiobook |
| Publisher | Little, Brown Book Group |
| Genre | History |
| Availability | AU, GB, IE |
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