Description

Most histories of American freemasonry focus on individual states or individuals, or where a broader sweep has been attempted, are often hagiographies. In contrast, The Genesis of American Freemasonry looks at the development of freemasonry in America and the evolution of its ritual within its contemporary eighteenth-century landscape using primary source material. It acknowledges how the thirteen colonies developed from being a component part of a transatlantic Greater Britain, a composite of America, Britain and Ireland, into an independent nation. It brings together the who and when with the why and how. And it acknowledges that many of the key Masonic figures had the same moral shortcomings as many of those who govern or influence society today.