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

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.

“Ridley captures the organization’s fundamental outlook, and its morality. What is more, he is an enchanting storyteller.”—The Wall Street Journal

To the layman, they are a mysterious brotherhood of profound if uncertain influence, a secret ...