Freemasonrys secrecy is like a well. The men who built it know how deep it is. The rest of us can only peer over the wall that surrounds it and wonder. While we gaze downwards at the water, speculating on what might lurk below the black surface, it reflects back our anxieties. That, in essence, is why the craft has generated misunderstanding, suspicion, and hostility at every step.

Yet, until recently, Freemasons insisted on treating their history as confidential – a matter for masons alone. Cowans were refused access to the archives and libraries of Grand Lodges. Then, a generation ago, the wisest brothers realized that Masonic history is too important to be the exclusive property of the initiated. Because Freemasonry has had a role in shaping our world, its history belongs to us all. These days, professional historians who are not Freemasons are a familiar site in the archives of Grand Lodges. Their work, supplementing and challenging the efforts of the best Masonic historians, has maped out an exciting and ever growing field of investigation. One of the aims of this book is to bring some of that research to a much bigger audience.

John Dickie