Paperback: What did Mozart and Bach, Oscar Wilde and Anthony Trollope, George Washington and Frederick the Great, Winston Churchill and Franklin D Roosevelt have in common? They were all Freemasons, a secret society that has been the subject of endless fascination.
To the layman, they are a mysterious brotherhood of profound if uncertain influence, a secret society purported in some popular histories to have its roots in the fabled order of the Knights Templar, or in the mysteries of the Egyptian pyramids. They evoke fears of world domination by a select few who enjoy privileged access to wealth and the levers of power. The secrecy of their rites suggests the taint of sacrilege, and their hidden loyalties are sometimes accused of undermining the workings of justice and the integrity of nations. Chapters here include:
The Masons
Heretics
Grand Lodge
The Pope’s Bull
Germany and France
English Grand Lodge
Troubles and Scandals
The American Revolution
The French Revolution
Modern Freemasonry in Britain
Modern Freemasonry in the United States
Are the Freemasons a Menace
And much more!
Though not a mason himself, Jasper Ridley nonetheless refutes many of the outrageous allegations made against Freemasonry, while at the same time acknowledging the masons’ shortcomings: their clannishness, misogyny, obsession with secrecy, and devotion to arcane ritual.
In this much-needed reassessment first published in 1999 and reprinted in 2011, he offers a substantial work of history that sifts the truth from the myth as it traces Freemasonry from its origins to the present day.
About the author: Jasper Ridley (1920-2004) was a British writer known for historical biographies. He received the 1970 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for his biography Lord Palmerston. Ridley was educated at Magdalen College, Oxford and the Sorbonne. He trained and practiced as a barrister before beginning his career as a writer. He was a conscientious objector during WWII, served on St Pancras Borough Council between 1945 and 1949, and stood as Labour Party candidate for Winchester in 1955. He was the author of around 20 biographies and general historical works, with subjects as diverse as Henry VIII, Thomas Cranmer, Mussolini, and Tito. His work has been described by Isabel Quigley as 'the non-fiction equivalent of the upper-middlebrow novel – intelligent, accessible, not too demanding'. Ridley was master of the Carpenters Company, a vice-president of English PEN (Poets, Playwrights, Editors, Essayists and Novelists), and a keen walker.
His last work, The Freemasons (2011) posted here, was highly acclaimed.
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