The Freemasons: A History of the World's Most Powerful Secret Society

Rating:
Summary: Left needing more
Review: This is the first book on the subject I have read and to my what this book doesn't do is go into the rituals and dealings of the Freemasons. It literally is, as it claims, a history.
The book seems to concern itself more with taking focal points in history and determining how many freemasons were involved. It came across, therefore, as a general history of the world at the points at which freemasons pop up in, rather than history of freemasonry.
At a purely technical level it comes across as fragmented and this is further echoed in the fact that the book is not singly thematic. It is both chronological, geographical, sociological, and political in its chapters and the reader suffers from lack of consistency. A good example is on page 54 of the hardcover version. It moves abruptly from talking about Maria Theresia to a John Coustos without pausing breath. I had to check several times there weren't missing pages for I could see no link, no chapter end, nothing. This occurs throughout the book and prevents it from having true fluidity. Indeed the history comes across as anecdotal at times (humorously so in the case of Chevalier d'Eon).
Simply put, the book is far too disjointed. Half way through it becomes (on almost a paragraph by paragraph basis) a collection of historical anecdotes, each culminating with who was a freemason and who wasn't.
There was no theory or conjecture as to how much the concepts, doctrines and beliefs of freemasonry dictated those peoples actions and thereby potentially altered history.
What you end up with is purely a chronology of who was and wasn't a freemason at various historical points.
Maybe Ridley was intimating that freemasonry today has arrived at its present perception through a combination of chance and circumstance dictated by others through history. What the book does state quite clearly is that people in power dislike secret societies for fear of fomenting sedition.
So, only 3 stars because if you want to know who was a freemason and who wasn't at major points in history, then this book is for you. What this book doesn't do is show how freemasonry may have influenced the actions of those historical figures.

Rating:
Summary: WOW! what a Title,
Review: With the many books of like title, I expected us to take another bashing, Yes, I am a Freemason. Yet, I have to let you know that I have found this latest book's author quite different and supprizingly unbiased and very informitive, The author Jasper Ridley has written such works as The Roundheads, The Statesman and Fanatic, and biographies of persons of such note as John Knox, Mary Tudor, Henry VIII, Elizabeth I, Tito and Mussolini..
Mr. Ridley not being a Freemason spent some 63 days in The Masonic Library in Freemasons Hall in London in an attempt, as he puts it of "writing an objective book on the subject," I believe he has accomplished the task, it is a meticulous, sane and lucid.
He shifts the truth from the myth and takes us from the Tower of Babel
to Freemasonry in America today and answers the question for the world. "Are Freemasons a Menice ?", It is also a Who,s Who of artist, businessmen, politicians and thinkers in countries all over the world who belong to our great fraternity
He gives the contributions of the Craft to the World, refutes many of the alligations made against us and tells of our shortcomings: such as clannishness, misogyny, obsession with
secrecy and devotion to arcane ritual.
This book truly provides balance from all the wild claims that come out from time to time and all the Anti-Masonic literature that is on the market.
If you have bought a book on Masonry in the last 15 Years then you need this one to bring it into focus, and for our detractors, a great gift !. Thanks for writing it. Mr. Ridley