The Craft cover art

The Craft

How the Freemasons Made the Modern World

 Preview
Get this deal Try Premium Plus free
Offer ends 29 January 2026 at 11:59PM GMT.
Prime members: New to Audible? Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Just £0.99/mo for your first 3 months of Audible.
1 bestseller or new release per month—yours to keep.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, podcasts, and Originals.
Auto-renews at £8.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically.

The Craft

By: John Dickie
Narrated by: Simon Slater
Get this deal Try Premium Plus free

£8.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly. Offer ends 29 January 2026 at 11:59PM GMT.

£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £16.99

Buy Now for £16.99

LIMITED TIME OFFER | £0.99/mo for the first 3 months

Premium Plus auto-renews at £8.99/mo after 3 months. Terms apply.

About this listen

 Cecil Rhodes and Shaquille O'Neal; Mozart and Peter Sellers; Duke Ellington and the Duke of Wellington; Benjamin Franklin and Rudyard Kipling. These Masons, and many others, people the pages of The Craft, but even more compelling is the overarching narrative of Freemasonry itself. As a set of character-forming ideals, and a way of binding men in fellowship, it proved so addictive that within a few decades of its foundation in London in 1717 it had spread as far as India, Australia, South Africa, the Americas and the Caribbean.

Under George Washington, the Craft became a creed for the new American nation; Masonic networks held the British empire together; under Napoleon, the Craft became a tool of authoritarianism and then a cover for revolutionary conspiracy. The Mormons borrowed their rituals from the Craft. The Sicilian mafia stole the Masonic organizational model.

Amid all this strange diversity, Masonry's core rituals and values have remained unchanged, inspiring both loyalty and suspicion. In the eyes of the Catholic Church, Freemasonry has always been a secret den of atheists and devil-worshippers: all Masons have been excommunicated since 1738. For Hitler, Mussolini and Franco the Lodges spread the diseases of pacifism, socialism and Jewish influence, so had to be crushed.

Professor Dickie's The Craft is an enthralling exploration of a movement that not only helped to forge modern society, but still has substantial contemporary influence. With 400,000 members in Britain, over a million in the USA, and around six million across the world, understanding the role of Freemasonry is as important now as it has ever been.

(P) 2020 Hodder & Stoughton Ltd©2020 John Dickie Other Religions, Practices & Sacred Texts World Africa Imperialism Socialism England Middle Ages Authoritarianism Winston Churchill Social justice British Empire Latin American

Listeners also enjoyed...

 Freemasons for Dummies, 2nd Edition cover art
The Temple and the Lodge cover art
Freemasons: The Hidden History of Freemasonry in the Last 100 Years cover art
In Hitler's Munich cover art
Albert Pike's Esoterika cover art
Bill O'Reilly's Legends and Lies: The Patriots cover art
The Lost Keys of Freemasonry cover art
The Illuminati cover art
The Case for Nationalism cover art
Atlas Shrugged cover art
The View from Flyover Country cover art
Pirate Women cover art
The Looming Tower cover art
The History of the Ancient World cover art
Secret City cover art
The Path of Freemasonry cover art
All stars
Most relevant
Really enjoyed the balanced approach to the history of the Masonic Order by a non Mason

An excellent and wide ranging history of Freemason

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Whether you have an interest in the freemasons or not, this is a superb listen. A history lesson that almost anyone can enjoy.

loved it

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Hi all if you are interested in Freemasonry give this book a listen,

You may just fine out something you did not known or that you miss understood

Very interested book and subject

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
loads of content and well read aswell. having listened to this one can see the repetition of history in different places and how freemasonry has survived during these times.

very good book

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Great Insight with considered narration. I learnt lots about a topic I knew nothing about. A little more depth on the practice of Freemasonry itself rather than the history might have been nice bit overall a great interesting listen packed with information.

Great Insight

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
See more reviews