Rule by Secrecy: The Hidden History That Connects the Trilateral Commission, the Freemasons, and the Great Pyramids

Rating:
Summary: Good introduction to modern events, but flawed
Review: The first 3 sections of the book are great. The author presents plenty of documented facts about the events of the last century, as well as some interesting speculation. If you have not been exposed to much of the historical information which lies below the surface of what is popularly presented, then this book will be an eye opener, and will probably leave you more interested in current events than ever before.

However, the last 2 sections, about the elder secret societies and ancient mysteries, is so full of speculation that it has no place in this book... These sections tend to have the effect of calling into question the credibility of the earlier sections. The topics these sections cover are very interesting, but they are composed of almost pure speculation.

However, if you are an intelligent reader you will be able to discern this on your own.

Rating:
Summary: Has to lose credibility
Review: This book has a lot of good stuff in it. The problem is the author also wrote a book called 'alien agenda'. That pretty much sums up what people think of the whole CFR conspiracy. Right on the front of the book it says, "from the author of alien agenda". I'm sorry, but I think this book does more harm than good on convincing anybody to look into it themselves.

I suggest reading James Perloff's Shadows of Power.

Rating:
Summary: Its a launching pad for other books
Review: I read bought this to fill a 5 hour gap in my college classes and to satisfy my above average curiousity about secret societies. what the book ended up doing was creating a whole new train of interest for me, the Crusades and the hoopla around the Holy Grail and the rest of the shananagins of the early middle ages.

Those of you with a new found interest in conspiracies will get your fill with this, and may get more than that.

Rating:
Summary: The Invisible Hand of History
Review: Everything you have come to know about the world will be called into question by reading this book. Marrs begins in 2000 and works backwards, letting us know who really was pulling the strings in world affairs. It seems that money talks, and Marrs is happy to tell us who the moneymen are. It's a bit depressing to know that multinational bankers use war and debt to keep nations sparring and citizens enslaved.

Marrs takes us all the way back to Ancient Sumeria, where he drops the mother of all whammies, leaving us questioning his judgment as an investigative journalist. He comes up with some startling reads on history, which may be true, but are buffeted only by the cuneiform translation services of one maverick historian.

RULE BY SECRECY is an enjoyable and eye-opening read, but the entire book is so heavily footnoted that I couldn't shake the notion that I should be reading the other books instead. Marrs constantly quotes the findings of other researchers, while skimming the surface of each topic, and never really speaking with authority concerning any angle. It doesn't feel so much like new information as a glossary of better researched information from the vaults of history. That said, I am still glad I read it. It was a great preamble to THE DA VINCI CODE, which was the very next book I read.

Rating:
Summary: Brilliant Beginning, Inexplicable Conclusion
Review: This book is truly brilliant over its first three sections. One might say that it views the history of western civilization through a lens that most of us would rather avoid. That lens is the notion that we are not really free, but are being manipulated by powerful individuals who only have their own best interests at heart. It is very disconcerting to contemplate the possibility that the work we do, the living we make, benefits the power elite more than it will ever benefit us. Moreover, the idea that the living we make, or try to make, actually makes us more subservient to the power elite, would sound like insane paranoia to most people. This is an idea that the vast majority of the middle and working class would never, ever entertain, much less seriously consider. Marrs suggests that such ideas are probably true. In the first three sections he articulates the methods and motives of those that own the political and economic engines that power western civilization. Is Homo Sapiens essentially a pack animal that naturally organizes itself into social pecking orders; and does this pack animal mentality make it almost impossible for most of us to seriously question and defy authority? Can we accept the description of political power that Jim Marrs offers in this book? If you don't seriously believe that such control of the masses is possible you will never be convinced by any argument. Marrs goes beyond mere paranoid conspiracy by describing in great detail the history of political control in western civilization.
If the book stopped after section three it would be a brilliant piece of alternative history. Unfortunately, Marrs inexplicably enters Chariots of the Gods territory to find an origin for the control of human societies by the power elite. He suggests that Sitchen's interpretation of Sumerian creation myths is the most "compelling" explanation for the origin of homo sapiens as well as the origin of the secret societies that currently control the shape and purpose of our society. In a few dozen pages he destroys the credibility of an argument meticulously constructed in the first three hundred or so pages. Why? Perhaps he just didn't know when to stop. It almost seems that the last section of the book is purposefully meant to undermine what preceded it. There is simply no need to extend the "rule by secrecy" argument into aliens-genetically-manipulated-us territory. Why, Jim, why? I can accept the possiblity that humans have developed highly advanced cultures in prehistoric times, since our species has existed with the same capacity for languistic and intellectual expression for tens of thousands of years. I can believe that we have risen to great technical and philosophical heights many, many times only to destroy ourselves. There is no need to bring ET into the equation. We can be as brilliant, stupid, wonderful and ugly as we need to be to create and ruin our societies, and rise from our own ashes time and time again. The hidden history of human evolution and cultural expression is probably fascinating enough without having to turn it into bad science fiction.
Having said that, I highly recommend Rule By Secrecy to anyone that wants to understand who runs the show we call western civilization, how they do it, and why. Come to your own conclusions about the last section; but don't let it sour you on the brilliance of the text that precedes it.