Living the Enlightenment: Freemasonry and Politics in Eighteenth-Century Europe

Margaret C. Jacob is a historian of the Enlightenment, and this academic book, published by Oxford University Press, examines eighteenth century Freemasonry as a genuine social and political phenomenon of the Enlightenment, using surviving lodge records across several European countries to reconstruct what Masonic lodges actually did and who actually belonged to them. Its strength is that it is grounded in real archival lodge membership and meeting records rather than in later Masonic self mythology or in outside conspiracy literature, letting Jacob describe the movement's actual social composition and political leanings with documentary support. Its limit is that it focuses on the movement's eighteenth century European context specifically, so Freemasonry's later history and development in other regions need separate sources to cover.