The Freemasons In America:
Inside Secret Society
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Publisher Description
What Is Their Secret And What Are They Hiding?
Step inside the secret world of the Masons and discover:
How such pivotal American documents as the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights reflect Masonic principles and influence.
How Freemasons became the world's oldest and largest fraternal organization.
If Freemasons rule the world--or want to.
Why Masonic symbolism appears on American currency.
Why the opposition groups, from conspiracists to the Catholic Church, fear Freemasons.
Why Texas has been called "the Masonic Republic."
How to recognize Masonic rings, pins, and other symbols.
From George Washington to Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code, the Freemasons have influenced the United States in many surprising ways. With nearly half the world's six million Freemasons--some twenty-five U.S. presidents and thirty-five Supreme Court justices among them--America has felt the group's impact more deeply and broadly than any other country.
Using historical anecdotes and incisive analysis, this timely and insightful portrait separates the myths surrounding Freemasonry from the facts, offering a unique insider's view into what American Freemasonry was, is, and will be tomorrow.
H. Paul Jeffers has published more than 50 works of fiction and nonfiction, including Freemasons: Inside the World's Oldest Secret Society, biographies of presidents Theodore Roosevelt and Grover Cleveland, New York mayor Fiorello LaGuardia, Diamond Jim Brady, and others. He lives in Manhattan.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Jeffers' follow-up to his 2005 historical overview Freemasons takes a look at famous Masons in America, a list that includes 14 presidents, from Washington to Ford, as well as Benjamin Franklin, Davy Crockett and Neil Armstrong. Instead of exploring the influence that the secret society may have had on men like these, however, Jeffers contents himself to recording Mason-related historical anecdotes. The most interesting take place during the Civil War, such as the story of a dying Confederate Mason assisted by a Union brother at Gettysburg after "exhibiting the Masonic sign of distress." Despite the alluring subtitle, however, there is very little here that goes "inside" the society: no secrets are revealed, though Jeffers does briefly explore the possible influence of the society on the men who drafted the Consitution, designed U.S. currency and laid out Washington, D.C. Although Jeffers avows that he is not a Mason, an undercurrent of tacit approval for the Society further betrays the promise of the title. Though it may appeal to Freemasons and their supporters, it may be off-putting to the general reader that Jeffers doesn't offer a more reasoned, skeptical or revealing take.
