Insiders call it 'the Craft'. To the rest of us, Freemasonry is mysterious & suspect. Yet its story is peopled by some of the most distinguished men of the last three centuries: Winston Churchill & Walt Disney; Wolfgang Mozart & Shaquille O' Neal; Benjamin Franklin & Buzz Aldrin; Rudyard Kipling & ' Buffalo Bill' Cody; Duke Ellington & the Duke of Wellington. Founded in London in 1717 as a set of character-forming ideals & a way of binding men in fellowship, Freemasonry proved so addictive that within two decades it had spread across the globe. Masonic influence became pervasive. 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 & then a cover for revolutionary conspiracy. Both the Mormon Church & the Sicilian mafia owe their origins to Freemasonry. The Masons were as feared as they were influential. In the eyes of the Catholic C...