ABSTRACT This introduction to the volume on “The Fraternal Atlantic” places the eighteenth-century emergence of freemasonry within the context of the dynamic Atlantic world. It highlights three characteristics that persisted into the twentieth century: the importance of freemasonry to sociability across borders; the tensions within freemasonry between cosmopolitan fraternalism and the turbulent political waters of the modern era, often leading to exclusive practices; and the plasticity of freemasonry that facilitated local adaptations and resiliency. A focus on freemasonry and the fraternal Atlantic offers a bridge between the early modern and modern eras, from the Age of Revolutions to movements for international cooperation after the First World War. It likewise mitigates the tendency of Atlantic scholarship to compartmentalize into various sub-Atlantics, instead seeing the Atlantic world as a zone of interaction with broader global connections.

中文翻译：

---

兄弟的大西洋：简介

摘要在“异域大西洋”一书中的引言将18世纪的共济会出现在充满活力的大西洋世界的背景下。它强调了一直延续到20世纪的三个特征：共济会对跨国界交往的重要性；大都会兄弟会与现代动荡的政治水域之间的共济会内部的紧张关系，常常导致排他性做法；共济会的可塑性促进了当地的适应和适应。对共济会和兄弟的大西洋的关注为现代和早期时代之间的桥梁，从革命时代到第一次世界大战之后的国际合作运动。