// Comparison
La science du secret vs Serious Cryptography: Which Should You Read?
Two cybersecurity books on Cryptography, compared honestly: who each is for, what each does best, and which to read first.
A lucid popular-science history of cryptography by Jacques Stern, one of France's most eminent cryptographers — from classical ciphers to public-key and the science of secrecy.
A Practical Introduction to Modern Encryption
Jean-Philippe Aumasson
Jean-Philippe Aumasson's working introduction to modern cryptography, written for engineers who need both intuition and enough mathematical depth to evaluate the choices a library is making for them.
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Key takeaways
- Popular cryptography history written by a top-tier cryptographer (Stern, ENS), so the science is impeccable.
- Traces the arc from classical ciphers to public-key — the conceptual leaps, not the code.
- A French equivalent of The Code Book with a researcher's eye; dated on modern primitives but timeless on fundamentals.
- Modern primitives can be understood by engineers, given the right framing — Aumasson's choice to bound the math is the book's defining design decision.
- The 2nd edition (2024) covers post-quantum cryptography (Kyber, Dilithium, SPHINCS+) at the depth a deploying engineer actually needs.
- The chapters on hash-function attacks (length extension, multi-collisions) are the clearest in print and explain why half of the production bugs in HMAC-adjacent code happen.
How they compare
We rate Serious Cryptography higher (5/5 against 4/5 for La science du secret). For most readers, that means Serious Cryptography is the primary pick and La science du secret is a useful follow-up.
Both books target intermediate-level readers, so the choice is about topic, not difficulty.
La science du secret and Serious Cryptography both cover Cryptography, so reading them in sequence reinforces the same material from different angles.