Ill. Bro. Richard E. Fletcher, Secretary of the Masonic Information Center, called again to mention a few more books I “really should read.” As usual, he was right. Allow me, through the January-February issue book reviews in the Journal, to pass on his recommendations.

Evan Thomas, John Paul Jones: Sailor, Hero, Father of the American Navy, New York: Simon & Schuster, 2003, 381 pages, illustrated, hardback, ISBN 0-7432-9583-9, $26.95 cover price but available on the Internet for $16.17.

Evan Thomas has several outstanding biographies to his credit, including the very popular Robert Kennedy: A Life. He has done an outstanding job with the life of Brother John Paul Jones. It can’t have been easy.

In many ways, Jones is an enigmatic man. We’re not sure of his parentage, we’re not ever exactly sure what he looked like. There are several portraits of him, but they look as if they could be different men. He was a gifted, prolific letter writer, and most of those letters have survived. His correspondence with such men as Adams, Franklin, and Jefferson gives us unique insights into their lives. A central figure in many naval battles, he was a Freemason and member of Kirkcudbright Lodge in Scotland. On May 1, 1780, he was invited to join the Lodge of the Nine Sisters in Paris—easily the most prestigious Masonic Lodge in Europe. As Thomas writes, “populated by philosophes and the progressive fringe of the nobility, the lodge was a temple to Enlightenment thought. Its members included Voltaire and Ben Franklin.”

There is more about Freemasonry in the book, and, of course, much more about John Paul Jones. It reads like an adventure novel. Indiana Jones had nothing on John Paul. If you enjoy biography, history, the founding of our nation, or just a great story, you’ll like this book.

Richard E. Rubenstein, Aristotle’s Children: How Christians, Muslims, and Jews Rediscovered Ancient Wisdom and Illuminated the Dark Ages, Orlando: Harcourt Books, 2003, 368 pages, index, illustrations, hardback, ISBN 0-15-100720-9, cover price $27.00 but available on the Internet for $18.90.

Rubenstein is Professor of Conflict Resolution and Public Affairs at George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia, near Washington, D.C. This is certainly appropriate since Rubenstein is writing about one of the greatest conflicts of all time, the intellectual explosion that transformed Europe in the Middle Ages. The author follows a set of ideas as they coursed through the West, triggering student riots and heresy trials, prompting Pope Innocent III to recognize the Franciscan and Dominican Orders, and setting the stage for today’s rift between reason and religion. This new perspective came from Aristotle. Obviously not a book about Freemasonry, it is, nevertheless, a book about the beginnings of the culture in which Freemasonry arose and which still echoes in much of our ritual. It is a great and compelling story of the conflict of faith and reason—two valid but seemingly opposing views of the world. That battle continues today. This is history writ large. I could not put down Aristotle’s Children until the book’s last page.

Margaret C. Jacob, The Radical Enlightenment: Pantheists, Freemasons and Republicans, The Temple Publishers, 2003, revised second edition, paperback, 307 pages, index, cover price $24.00, ISBN 0-9724445-7-2, available on the Internet for the same price.

Professor Jacob’s earlier book, Living the Enlightenment, simply won’t stay in my library. I’ve bought five copies, but I keep lending it to people to read, and they lend it to others, and I buy another copy. I suspect the same fate will befall this book. The lady is a gifted and powerful writer who makes history almost uncomfortably alive. This new work is, if anything, even more powerful than her first book, where she showed how the traditions of Freemasonry—making our own rules and bylaws, electing our own leaders—not only made us the object of deepest suspicion to church and government alike, but also made us a beacon of hope and information for those seeking freedom.

The Radical Enlightenment does that and more. I’ve always felt that we undersold our Masonic history and tradition as rebels. That line about Masons being peaceable citizens is a recent addition to the ritual. We have much to be proud of in our rebel past. Washington, Franklin, Revere, Warren, and other Masonic heroes of the American Revolution were not exactly pillars of civil conformity. Warren died leading a rebel army, not a parade. These men burned with a clear, bright passion for freedom, not security. They were champions of the Enlightenment, that great awakening of mankind to human potential, which swept the world and made it possible for Americans to speak of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness as real and reasonable goals. This book chronicles those beginning events in Europe which gave Freemasons a proud heritage of freedom and fighting for it. Try Jacob’s book. I’ll bet you buy extra copies to give to friends. While you’re at it, buy a copy to give to your local public library.

Robert Lomas, Freemasonry and the Birth of Modern Science, Gloucester, MA: Fair Winds Press, 2003, hardbound, 374 pages, color illustrations, ISBN 1-59233-011-8, cover price $24.95 but available on the Internet for $17.49.

In the first place, how can you not be enchanted with a book whose chapter titles include: “The Patron Saint of Frozen Chickens,” “Gossips, Spies and French Mistresses,” and “Life, the Universe and a Theory of Everything”? This is a serious book, and it is well worth reading. The Royal Society was the first organization in the world created to advance and preserve science. Many Masons were involved in its founding and were members over the years—men whose names history has made glorious. It was a dangerous time. Scientists were often accused of witchcraft. Many people thought it was demeaning to God to attempt to understand the way in which His laws worked in the universe. But the same spirit which was manifesting itself politically (as seen in Jacob’s book reviewed earlier) also manifested itself in the arts and, especially, in the sciences. The insistence upon freedom, which typified the Masons of the age, demanded freedom in all—religion, art, science, and politics. These concepts broke like a tidal wave over society. It was a glorious, heady, dangerous time to be alive, and Lomas captures that spirit very well. Again, it is a book you need to read—it gives us, as Freemasons, a lot of bragging rights.

Jim Tresner, Valley of Guthrie, Okla., is the Director of the Masonic Leadership Institute; Editor of The Oklahoma Mason, Member of the Steering Committee, Masonic Information Center; Director of Work in Guthrie; and author, among other books, of Albert Pike: The Man Beyond the Monument and Vested in Glory: The Regalia of the Scottish Rite. Contacts: Grand Lodge of Oklahoma, P.O. Box 1019, Guthrie OK 73044; Tel. 405-282-3212; Fax 405-282-3244; okmasonmag@hotmail.com