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FREEMASONRY TODAY
Book Review
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BIBLIOGRAFÍA DE LA MASONERÍA
José Antonio Ferrer Benimeli and Susana Cuartero Escobes, , 3 vols., Madrid, Fundación Universitaria
Española, 2004. Paperback, 1433 pages, 60 Euros. ISBN: 84–7392–551–3 to 84–7392–551–2–3. Available from Fundacion
Universitaria Espanola, fax 00 34 91 576 7352, fue2@nova.es
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During the 1960s a young Spanish
student decided to pursue a Ph.D
on Freemasonry in
eighteenth–century Europe. Almost forty
years later, the same student, now a
Professor of modern history at the
University of Zaragoza and the founder
and President of an acclaimed centre
studying the history of Hispanic
Freemasonry, is regarded as one of the
foremost experts on Freemasonry in the
world. In a quite remarkable career, Dr.
José Antonio Ferrer Benimeli has
participated in more than 400 conferences,
written over 420 articles and published
forty-four books, the most recent of which
are the subject of this review––a threevolume
bibliography of Freemasonry
which he has produced with fellow
historian, Dr. Susana Cuartero Escobes.
This elegantly produced offering
consists of two separate works, each in
paperback form with its own colour cover.
Book one is self contained and is virtually
a reproduction of Professor Benimeli’s
Bibliografia de la Masoneria which was
first published in Caracas and Madrid in
1974 and 1978 respectively, but with some
minor emendations. Book two comes in
two volumes and lists more than 14,000
new titles published between 1978 and
2004, which stands as a testament to the
ever-growing popularity of the subject and
its gradual acceptance as a valid subject for
academic research.
All three volumes list a diverse array of
masonic publications including, almanacs,
calendars, catalogues, constitutions,
dictionaries, encyclopaedias, lexicons,
statutes, as well as other bibliographies,
but the majority of the entries concern
books and papers on the history of
Freemasonry, from its obscure and
frequently mythologized origins to the
present day. Each of the entries lists the
respective work in its original language
and even just a cursory glance at the
indexes quickly reveals just how vast an
undertaking this work must have been as
there are publications either published in,
or focused on, countries as far a field as
Austria, Brazil, Cuba, India, Russia,
Senegal and Turkey.
In short, this work is an invaluable tool
for anyone seriously interested in
researching any aspect of Freemasonry.
Matthew Scanlan
Issue 32, Spring 2005
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© Grand Lodge Publications Ltd 1997-2008
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