Discover the "convincingly researched and thoroughly entertaining" (The Wall Street Journal) history of the world's oldest and most influential fraternity

Founded in London in 1717 as a way of binding men in fellowship, Freemasonry proved so addictive that within two decades it had spread across the globe. Under George Washington, the Craft became a creed for the new American nation. Under Napoleon, it became a tool of authoritarianism and a cover for revolutionary conspiracy. Later, both the Mormon Church and the Sicilian Mafia would owe their origins to Freemasonry.

Yet the Masons were as feared as they were influential, seen by the Catholic Church as a den of devil worship. For Hitler, Mussolini, and Franco, the Lodges spread the diseases of pacifism, socialism, and Jewish influence, so had to be crushed.

Freemasonry's story yokes together Winston Churchill and Walt Disney, Wolfgang Mozart and Shaquille O'Neal, Benjamin Franklin and Buzz Aldrin. John Dickie's The Craft is an enthralling exploration of the world's most famous and misunderstood secret brotherhood, a movement that not only helped to forge modern society but remains prominent today.