[.ca] The History of Freemasonry: Its Legendary Origins (ISBN 0517149826)

The book incites more questions than it answers:
The book is quite thorough in citing the various theories regarding the origin and history of freemasonry, however, it leaves you hanging on what the author thinks is the correct one(if there is a correct one). For the newly raised master mason this book will orient you on the mythology regarding our craft. It will also impress upon you that the rituals are only symbolic and as such are only partially based on history. The sad thing is that books like this tend to give out too much of our secrets(check out Wilmhurst's book and see the word). The good thing is we brothers are enlightened as to the nature of our science. Besides only true masons can understand the allegory and symbolism.

The Essential Research Book of Freemasonry:
The History of Freemasonry is clouded with time, personal prejudice, suppression and many other factors. Yet, men like Mackey lay the paver-stones for the path of self-discovery amongst Masons. He gave many years of his life to this research and the book is well-worth every year he spent in dusty libraries, to produce this work. The beginnings of this book contain very archaic language, but the struggle is worth the time given to study. It seems that most books are a variation of this material, or refer to this material. Whether it is "the definitive history of Freemasonry," or not, is up to debate.... However, it is hard to appreciate NEW findings, without refering to books such as this one, to understand how much of the mass-market material is "accurate" or, at-least, Inspired-by well-documented research. I would expect to see this one on every Mason's bookshelf, but Anyone can appreciate the complex "History of Freemasonry."

Mackey knows the myths; see Stevenson for verifiable history:
Mackey's book does a good job of collecting Freemasonry's powerful myths in one place, and that makes it a worthwhile read. The language may strike some as archaic, but it's still quite readable. For those who are looking for this remarkable movement's verifiable origins, I recommend David Stevenson's excellent study, "The Origins of Freemasonry: Scotland's Century, 1590-1710". Stevenson teaches history at the University of St. Andrews, and has carefully examined the surviving records of the world's earliest known masonic lodges. In "Scotland's Century", he traces the beginnings of modern Freemasonry to the operative masonic lodges of Scotland in the early 1600s, about a century before the earliest known English lodges.

The book incites more questions than it answers:
The book is quite thorough in citing the various theories regarding the origin and history of freemasonry, however, it leaves you hanging on what the author thinks is the correct one(if there is a correct one). For the newly raised master mason this book will orient you on the mythology regarding our craft. It will also impress upon you that the rituals are only symbolic and as such are only partially based on history. The sad thing is that books like this tend to give out too much of our secrets(check out Wilmhurst's book and see the word). The good thing is we brothers are enlightened as to the nature of our science. Besides only true masons can understand the allegory and symbolism.

It Wasn't Supposed To Answer The Question...:
To those who were disappointed at not receiving the answer to the unanswerable: We have not succeeded in answering all your problems. The answers we have found only serve to raise a whole set of new questions. In some ways, we feel we are as confused as ever, but we believe that we are confused on a higher level and about more important things.