Before reviewing the book, I first would like to say that this series of books from the IEEE is excellent. The ones I have read truly did get to the heart of understanding the subject. A couple that I bought but never read were slightly too academic to fit into the "understanding" category. I highly recommend "Ones and Zeros" and "Understanding Digital Transmission and Recording".

With that said, this is an engineering book that has influenced me a great deal. It is a very good survey of the field that leaves some detail out, but strives to build a nice conceptual map of the subject to help you explore on your own. Relationships between the topics in this field are clearly described. I highly recommend if you're interested in how communication and information works theoretically and what motivates the theory. The chapters "Why Sinusoids" and the one on cryptography are truly enlightening. ( )