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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
On the origin of free-masonry. Posthumous work

On the origin of free-masonry. Posthumous work

Paine, Thomas

Paperback

PhilosophySecret SocietiesGeneral World History

ISBN10: 9389247454
ISBN13: 9789389247459
Publisher: Alpha Edition
Published: Jun 29 2019
Pages: 34
Weight: 0.12
Height: 0.08 Width: 5.50 Depth: 8.50
Language: English
How did a brotherhood of builders become a global legend? In this brisk, posthumous work, Thomas Paine turns his scepticism on the origins of freemasonry and the stories told in its lodges. Secrets do not stay buried. Part historical nonfiction essay, part philosophical pamphlet, Paine weighs competing traditions about the craft, asking what can be credited, what is ceremony, and what is later invention. He writes as an observer of masonic rituals and symbols, and as a public thinker shaped by the early American republic and the wider Enlightenment era Europe. In a public domain classic edition, it reads as vivid secret society history: a compact masonic history reference for the curious, and a prompt for fraternal studies research without the jargon. Paine's aim is clarity: to separate lodge romance from documentary likelihood, and to place freemasonry among the many civic and intellectual societies of the eighteenth century. Read in one sitting, it leaves questions ringing long after. Written at the turn of the nineteenth century, it shows Paine applying Enlightenment reason to inherited institutions, and captures how fraternities were debated in print when the modern idea of a lodge was forming across Europe. As a deist philosophy classics staple from one of the period's most influential radicals, it still belongs in any Thomas Paine collection. Republished by Alpha Editions in a careful modern edition, this volume preserves the spirit of the original while making it effortless to enjoy today - a heritage title prepared for readers and collectors alike.

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