How the Freemasons Made the Modern World
John Dickie
Fair warning,this book is not, nor does it pretend to be an expose' of the inner workings of Masonic lodges, except in times where these overlapped world events and/or schisms within the Masonic order. What ths does give you is a look at how Masonic traditions impacted and were impacted by world events.
Dickie starts with examining the Masonic legends of the creation of the lodges, as well as delving into the actual likely origins. Throughout he chronicles the famous (and occasionally infamous) members through history, as well as how some of the ideals lead to helping establish better government policies and heirarchies during the overthrow of European monarchy. He also doesn't shy away from covering the times in fascist and colonial states and eras where the ideals stated in Masonic rules were severely contradicted by the behavior of their brothers.
I did find this a bit dense and ponderous at times, but not particularly more so than many other tomes covering history of organizations, families, or areas. If you have ever wondered about the conspiracy theories you may have heard, this is a good place to start looking into the origins and (for the most part) falsehood of them.
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