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4.0 AVERAGE
4.0 AVERAGE
One of the existing reviews of this six hundred and seventy odd page tome suggests there's nothing new within its pages. That may be the case, but if you already knew all of this, what the hell else were you hoping to learn?! Fucking everything is in here!
Frankly, there's too much and there's too much damn detail. Some of it, like the section on the Italian P2 scandal is almost incomprehensible, while other sections lead you to go: so what? It's all there, though. Exhaustively researched, exhaustingly rendered. I can't imagine writing this was much fun. Blah, blah, blah, skip to the end would have been my approach.
Anyway, ultimately I really got into it. There's loads of tales of dodgy dealings within the Freemasons - nothing which can be proven beyond a shadow of a doubt, mind - but you know; careers ruined, money misappropriated, justice perverted, lies upheld...
The Freemasons are apparently a secret society, dedicated to the moral and spiritual improvement of its members. Career advancement and underhand dealings are frowned upon. That's funny because as far as I was aware, it was those two latter things that the Freemasons were all about. If it isn't, why would anyone actually want to join and dedicate so much of their time and money to going to meetings and carrying out obscure rituals?
They also say it's about charitable causes, but again, if that were the case, why not just do some charity work? You don't need to be a member of a secret brotherhood to do that. Very suspicious.
The problem is that this book was written in 1989. I don't know if you remember, but it was a much simpler time - long before the 2008 financial collapse that has sent us spiraling into poverty, xenophobia and corporate greed. I'd love to know where Freemasonry sits in the modern world, but it is curiously absent from Owen Jones's excellent expose of "The Establishment". You could preliminarily read that in three ways; 1. Freemasonry just isn't that much of a force anymore. 2. Freemasonry is even more powerful, and therefore has managed to conceal itself more successfully than the Establishment's other players. Or 3. Owen Jones is a Freemason, and it's in his interest not to talk about it. I would err on the side of number 1, but it would be nice to know for sure.
I decided to do a internet search of Freemasonry in the news, and was surprised to find that ALL the stories were of a positive, fund-raising kind (with the exception of one negative, inheritance-stealing kind that went on to rubbish the idea that this meant that Masonry was a corrupt organisation), but you know, it would be. Because they are smart enough to publicise the "good" that they do. Whether or not any of their members are trustees of the various good causes or benefit in some way is not disclosed, though Short's "Inside the Brotherhood" suggests we shouldn't be surprised if they are or do, and gives several examples of how they have been/done in the past.
Ultimately then, I found this really interesting, but mostly in a quaint, historical kind of way. I could imagine most people finding it deathly dull and far too much of a slog, but once I got into it I fair tore through it. It is a lot of pages, but I suspect that my copy had less words per page than most books these days and therefore facilitated a higher rate of pages per minute. I just can't get over that niggle though, of whether it's relevant today or not. It probably is, but we've got bigger fish to fry.
Frankly, there's too much and there's too much damn detail. Some of it, like the section on the Italian P2 scandal is almost incomprehensible, while other sections lead you to go: so what? It's all there, though. Exhaustively researched, exhaustingly rendered. I can't imagine writing this was much fun. Blah, blah, blah, skip to the end would have been my approach.
Anyway, ultimately I really got into it. There's loads of tales of dodgy dealings within the Freemasons - nothing which can be proven beyond a shadow of a doubt, mind - but you know; careers ruined, money misappropriated, justice perverted, lies upheld...
The Freemasons are apparently a secret society, dedicated to the moral and spiritual improvement of its members. Career advancement and underhand dealings are frowned upon. That's funny because as far as I was aware, it was those two latter things that the Freemasons were all about. If it isn't, why would anyone actually want to join and dedicate so much of their time and money to going to meetings and carrying out obscure rituals?
They also say it's about charitable causes, but again, if that were the case, why not just do some charity work? You don't need to be a member of a secret brotherhood to do that. Very suspicious.
The problem is that this book was written in 1989. I don't know if you remember, but it was a much simpler time - long before the 2008 financial collapse that has sent us spiraling into poverty, xenophobia and corporate greed. I'd love to know where Freemasonry sits in the modern world, but it is curiously absent from Owen Jones's excellent expose of "The Establishment". You could preliminarily read that in three ways; 1. Freemasonry just isn't that much of a force anymore. 2. Freemasonry is even more powerful, and therefore has managed to conceal itself more successfully than the Establishment's other players. Or 3. Owen Jones is a Freemason, and it's in his interest not to talk about it. I would err on the side of number 1, but it would be nice to know for sure.
I decided to do a internet search of Freemasonry in the news, and was surprised to find that ALL the stories were of a positive, fund-raising kind (with the exception of one negative, inheritance-stealing kind that went on to rubbish the idea that this meant that Masonry was a corrupt organisation), but you know, it would be. Because they are smart enough to publicise the "good" that they do. Whether or not any of their members are trustees of the various good causes or benefit in some way is not disclosed, though Short's "Inside the Brotherhood" suggests we shouldn't be surprised if they are or do, and gives several examples of how they have been/done in the past.
Ultimately then, I found this really interesting, but mostly in a quaint, historical kind of way. I could imagine most people finding it deathly dull and far too much of a slog, but once I got into it I fair tore through it. It is a lot of pages, but I suspect that my copy had less words per page than most books these days and therefore facilitated a higher rate of pages per minute. I just can't get over that niggle though, of whether it's relevant today or not. It probably is, but we've got bigger fish to fry.