The International Institute of Social History presents "A Very Short History of Secret Societies". It consists of a general introduction and brief notes on the Freemasons, Jesuits, Illuminati, Carbonari, Burschenschaften, the mysterious Great Firmament, societies in France, Germany, Russia, the USA and Asia, and older precursors. The texts are enriched by twelve illustrations from the IISH collections as well as by a dozen links to relevant literary works - from Goethe to Stendhal and from Shelley to Dostoievsky - and a bibliographical note mentioning twelve reliable studies.