The International Encyclopedia of Secret Societies and Fraternal Orders

Rating:
Summary: Disappointing
Review: A poor presentation of a fascinating and interesting subject.

It is evident that Axelrod has little direct and personal knowledge of the subject matter as his turn of phrase is often `out of synch' with common usage within various fraternal orders. Arguably, membership in one or a number of fraternal organizations would be a necessary pre-requisite before embarking on a work of this nature as fraternal societies are, in most instances, a society apart and thus have their own idiosyncrasies in terminology and approach to matters. Frequently he simply `misses the point'.

While at times he does make some genuinely humourous remarks or observations, often, however, these asides often miss their mark and come across as condescending and belittling. Similarly, despite being an `International Encyclopedia' his material is concentrated mainly on American forms of fraternalism, ignoring to a large degree British and European manifestations of the same groups. This is despite his criticism in an entry about another American author on the same subject being American-centric and also elsewhere making comment that the US does do things significantly different to Europe- these flaws are particular pronounced in his entries on Freemasonry, Oddfellowship and the Orange Order (about which he seems to have done remarkably little investigation indeed). The entry on the Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia is laughable in its incompleteness and erroneousness, and makes one wonder where Axelrod sourced a lot of his information because- again- a lack of actual research is evident in this entry.

The introduction, which potentially could be the most interesting part of a work of this nature, in which the author discusses the general elements and functions of societies of this nature as well as explain his editorial principles, is weak and incoherent and provides little real insight to fraternalism and secret societies and methodologies for studying them.

On the plus side, it is pleasant and light reading and many societies are mentioned which were unknown to me, especially the various parody societies. But, and it is a huge `but', the flawed scholarship and general inaccuracies (and there is a long list of them) which mar the book make me loathe to accept anything written therein as actual or factual. It's a good starting point for further investigation but you can not rely on it.

There are other issues as well, such as lack of depth of some entries, but that is a fault that could well be laid at the feet of the publisher and not the author.

Disappointing indeed


Rating:
Summary: A great encyclopiedia
Review: I THINK THIS is a great encylopida about a rare subject.I think alot of pepole don't understand sercert societies.They made a mistake thought it sayes the Russian Knights are on a certain page# but therers no info on them.Its very informative thought.They should update it for '02-03'.

Rating:
Summary: A great encyclopiedia
Review: I THINK THIS is a great encylopida about a rare subject.I think alot of pepole don't understand sercert societies.They made a mistake thought it sayes the Russian Knights are on a certain page# but therers no info on them.Its very informative thought.They should update it for '02-03'.

Rating:
Summary: This book was not well researched!!!!!
Review: I was throughly disappointed with Dr. Axelrod's book on Fraternal orders. I am an educated man, and a member of over 25 friendly socities. Axelrod definately read Schmidt's 1980 book Fraternal Orginizations. This is illustrated via his reporting that "this groups has not been heard of since 1980." What he is actually saying is "that the group has moved headquarters since 1980(when Schmidt reported it)and I do not want to take time and research the new location." He declares several groups to be long since dead, however they are very much alive. I wish Dr. Axelrod would have looked for sources better, he could have had a better book. This information takes a little bit of hard work to find, however it is easily accessable. after reading various texts I am able to see how Axelrod merely copies their work. I would suggest buying this book, it is fairly interesting, however it is full of inaccurate info.

Rating:
Summary: Just how odd are the Odd Fellows?
Review: Not very, as the author makes clear in thisfascinating tour of organizations from the Abecedairiens (who were suspicious of the newfangled printing press), to the Zuzumites (a defunct order about which little is known).
Comprehensive treatment is given of the Freemasons, Moose, Red Men, and other fraternal groups, and many others such as the Ku Klux Klan, Mafia, Lions, Rosicrucians, Knights of Columbus, and the famous E Clampus Vitus, a gold rush relic which survives in the California Gold Country today as a drinking and hellraising society.
Of special interest are the "secrets" of the secret societies, such as "grips" (secret handshakes), oaths, ceremonies and rituals, and "magic".Fascinating reading.
(The numerical rating above is a default setting within Amazon"s format. This reviewer does not employ numerical ratings.)