A Dictionary of Secret and Other Societies by Arthur Preuss
Social history as a corrective to a historiography is often too limited to diplomacy and wars . It began an upward trajectory as early as the 1930s , but it remains constrained by the frustrating cost and availability of materials that even great research libraries lack . This volume is a case in point .
Earl Warren ’ s Masonic Lodge : Herbert Phillips ’ Fifty Year History of Sequoia Lodge
Edited and Introduced by Dr . Paul J . Rich Long before Earl Warren was a famous governor of California and then an important Chief Justice of the United States , he was forging a career in Freemasonry . Starting as an officer and eventually master of a local lodge whose history is recounted in this volume , he worked his way up the stairs of the Masonic hierarchy to become Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of California .
Ancient Masonic Mysteries : John Perry ’ s The Freemason ’ s Gift Edited and Introduced by Guillermo De Los Reyes The antiquity of Freemasonry is much debated . As a philosophical and ritualistic society , rather than a group of stonemasons , it certainly existed in the seventeenth century . But its beginnings are intertwined with the building of the great cathedrals of Europe , so Masons speak of speculative and operative Masonry to separate the symbolic activities from the bricks and mortar of construction .
Anti-Masonry and the Murder of Morgan : Lee S . Tillotson ’ s Ancient Craft Masonry in Vermont
Edited and Introduced by Guillermo De Los Reyes The anti-Masonic movement was prominent during the 1820s and 1830s . Certainly individuals migrated to the Know Nothing and Whig movements and eventually to the incipient Republican party , but more research is needed . No state was more influenced by anti-Masonry than Vermont , where many of the lodges closed their doors because of the hysteria about Masonic influence .
Challenges Facing Freemasonry by John L . L . Cooper III , Preface by Paul J . Rich
As Dr . Cooper points out , there can be a change in emphasis over the years . But for all the changes , few public or university libraries take seriously the collecting of material on the Masons , so the serious researcher must get permission to use Masonic archives and libraries .