ISBN-13: 9780099257042 / Angielski / Miękka / 2000 / 448 str.
The Temple and The Lodge""charts the birth of Freemasonry through the survival of Templar traditions, through currents of European thought, through the mystery surrounding Rosslyn chapel, and through an elite cadre of aristocrats attached as personal bodyguards to the French king. Pursuing Freemasonry through the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the authors reveal its contribution to the fostering of tolerance, progressive values and cohesion in English society, which helped to pre-empt a French-style revolution. Even more dramatically, the influence of Freemasonry emerges as a key factoring the formation of the United States of America as an embodiment of the ideal 'Masonic Republic'.