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Inventing the Future: The 1723 Constitutions

By Ric Berman

SKU: 9780995756892
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  • DESCRIPTION

    2023 marks the tercentenary of the publication in London of The Constitutions of the
    Freemasons – the ‘1723 Constitutions’ – a book whose Enlightenment principles provide the
    philosophical foundations of Modern Freemasonry.
    Many Masonic histories have been concerned with ‘when’ and ‘what’. Inventing the Future
    examines the context, the contents and the consequences of the 1723 Constitutions, and seeks
    to explain ‘why’.


    The 1723 Constitutions is constructed on Enlightenment values that lie at the core of modern
    Freemasonry both in England and internationally. But the 1723 Constitutions and modern
    Freemasonry were not simply a product of the Enlightenment. They also impacted upon it,
    acting as a vector for the transmission of Freemasonry’s philosophical principles nationally
    and internationally.


    This book sets out those principles, considers the people involved and explores the framework
    within which their ideas were formed. And it discusses how the Constitutions evolved. In
    1730 it was taken by the Grand Lodge of Ireland as the model for the Irish Constitutions; the
    book was re-printed virtually verbatim by Benjamin Franklin in 1734 for use in America; it
    was translated and circulated widely throughout Europe in the 1730s and 1740s; and in the
    1750s it was indirectly the basis for Ahiman Rezon, the Constitutions of the Antients Grand
    Lodge and, after the War of Independence, of the State Grand Lodges in the United States of
    America.


    Understanding the context and content of the 1723 Constitutions explains the origins of
    modern Freemasonry and the relationship between Freemasonry and Society today.

    Paperback : 159 pages

  • THE AUTHOR
    Ric Berman
    Ric Berman

    A Freemason for more than forty years and twice Prestonian Lecturer, Ric Berman holds
    Grand Rank in the United Grand Lodge of England and is a Past Master of three English
    Lodges including Quatuor Coronati Lodge, the premier lodge of Masonic research. He is also
    an American Freemason, and a member or honorary member of lodges in five States, a
    Fellow of the Philalethes Society and past Anson Jones lecturer.
    As an historian, Ric researches and writes on eighteenth and nineteenth-century English,
    Irish and American freemasonry within their respective social and political contexts. He has
    written numerous journal articles and ten books, and has delivered plenary lectures
    worldwide. Ric holds a Master’s in Economics from the University of Cambridge and a
    Doctorate in History from the University of Exeter, following which he undertook post-
    doctoral research at the University of Oxford’s Modern European History Research Centre.
    He is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, a Life Fellow of the Huguenot Society and a
    Visiting Research Fellow at Oxford Brookes.

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