"Recommended."--Choice

"A brilliant study of the transnational forces and structures that framed the origins of the Civil War."--The Historian

"A page-turning secret society history based on solid research and accuracy."--Southern Historian

"A well-researched, fascinating look at an often overlooked part of antebellum America that proves that sometimes conspiracy theories are legitimate."--Blue & Gray Magazine

"Lause admirably demonstrates that a variety of voluntary organizations were active participants in antebellum America's political and racial struggles. . . . an impressive command of the intricate details of the many societies."--Nova Religio

"Readers will gain a richly layered understanding of political paths not taken, and of a fertile transatlantic political word full of people with great imagination and hope for the future."--Indiana Magazine of History

"A fascinating and provocative study that illuminates the history of the Civil War era by probing the relationship between political secret societies and social radicalism in Europe and antebellum reform and sectional crisis in the United States. This book will be a tremendous resource of information for scholars, and it is one of the most genuinely original works that I have ever read."--Robert E. May, author of Manifest Destiny's Underworld: Filibustering in Antebellum America

"A challenging look at the reality of Civil War-era secret societies. This work opens up enormous possibilities for future research, prompting us to reconsider--or indeed consider for the first time--people and perspectives that have been, at best, on the periphery of studies of the Civil War era."--Susan-Mary Grant, author of The War for a Nation: The American Civil War

"Dispelling the mysticism and self-aggrandizement of fraternal orders in antebellum America, Mark A. Lause successfully removes the Panjandrum from the panorama of American secret societies. The result is a careful examination of the consequence of secret societies and their place in shaping America’s national identity on the eve of the Civil War."--Michael A. Halleran, author of The Better Angels of Our Nature: Freemasonry in the American Civil War