Code Girls
Code Girls is a phenomenally well-researched book about the role women played in code breaking during World War II. The author interviewed everyone she could find, read countless declassified documents and requested that more be declassified, and toured several buildings in and around DC that were used as the various bases of operations. There's no question that she has a really good handle on what was a largely unexplored aspect of American history.
Unfortunately, she had a hard time wrangling all of that into a cohesive narrative. I think this book would have benefited greatly from a more aggressive editor. Mundy wants to share everything she learned, and it just doesn't all fit into a ~400 page book. Multiple paragraphs could have been moved to an appendix or the end notes. And while it's great to hear about all the women involved, it became hard to keep track of them all. The narrative as a whole would have been better served by focusing in on just a few women, instead of attempting to provide biographies for every single one within the text.
It didn't help that Mundy had trouble organizing all the information. I get it; there was a lot happening in WWII. And the code breaking was broken down between the Army and Navy, between the Atlantic and the Pacific, between domestic civilian and domestic military approaches, between foreign diplomatic, commercial, and military codes. And then Mundy went and started jumping around in time, too, so I had an even harder time orienting myself in each new chapter.
I'm frustrated by this book because it really could have been great if it had been a little more focused. I liked learning about the methods for breaking codes and how it was broken down into an almost assembly-line-like process. I liked all the local history, especially when I realized that one the buildings is right by the office I currently work in. I liked learning about all these women who defied the odds to study math or physics or linguistics in college and were given an opportunity to do really meaningful work for a few years, and how that started planting the seeds for the feminist movement their daughters would eventually take on. It reminded me of my own grandmothers: one an Army nurse in WWII, and the other a self-taught accountant who was denied the chance to go to college but had to figure out how to support her family when she was widowed. More than almost any other history book I've read, this felt like MY history. And I wanted it to be more accessible.
I think this would make a good supplemental text for a college course about the role of women in WWII. If you could read a chapter here or there with a professor to provide context for it, you'd get a lot more out of this book. But as something to just read, it left something to be desired. I hope it inspires a lot more people to start writing about these women, to tell more focused, intimate stories about them, and to bring this history out into the light.
Unfortunately, she had a hard time wrangling all of that into a cohesive narrative. I think this book would have benefited greatly from a more aggressive editor. Mundy wants to share everything she learned, and it just doesn't all fit into a ~400 page book. Multiple paragraphs could have been moved to an appendix or the end notes. And while it's great to hear about all the women involved, it became hard to keep track of them all. The narrative as a whole would have been better served by focusing in on just a few women, instead of attempting to provide biographies for every single one within the text.
It didn't help that Mundy had trouble organizing all the information. I get it; there was a lot happening in WWII. And the code breaking was broken down between the Army and Navy, between the Atlantic and the Pacific, between domestic civilian and domestic military approaches, between foreign diplomatic, commercial, and military codes. And then Mundy went and started jumping around in time, too, so I had an even harder time orienting myself in each new chapter.
I'm frustrated by this book because it really could have been great if it had been a little more focused. I liked learning about the methods for breaking codes and how it was broken down into an almost assembly-line-like process. I liked all the local history, especially when I realized that one the buildings is right by the office I currently work in. I liked learning about all these women who defied the odds to study math or physics or linguistics in college and were given an opportunity to do really meaningful work for a few years, and how that started planting the seeds for the feminist movement their daughters would eventually take on. It reminded me of my own grandmothers: one an Army nurse in WWII, and the other a self-taught accountant who was denied the chance to go to college but had to figure out how to support her family when she was widowed. More than almost any other history book I've read, this felt like MY history. And I wanted it to be more accessible.
I think this would make a good supplemental text for a college course about the role of women in WWII. If you could read a chapter here or there with a professor to provide context for it, you'd get a lot more out of this book. But as something to just read, it left something to be desired. I hope it inspires a lot more people to start writing about these women, to tell more focused, intimate stories about them, and to bring this history out into the light.
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