In showing why the Carbonari conspiracy developed and how it was handled, the author has illuminated the workings of the political system of the Restoration--the structure and organization of its administration and political police and the operation of political justice in its courts.

The Permanent Instruction of the Alta Vendita is a document, originally published in Italian in the 19th century, purportedly produced by the highest lodge of the Italian Carbonari and written by "Piccolo Tigre," codename for Giuseppe Mazzini. The document details an alleged Masonic plan to infiltrate the Catholic Church and spread liberal ideas within it. The Carbonari had strong similarities to Freemasonry and so the document is seen by some as a Masonic document. In the 19th century, Pope Pius IX[3] and Pope Leo XIII both asked for it to be published.

After surveying England's evolving theories of representative politics and individual and collective secretive practices, Pionke traces the intersection of democracy and secrecy through a series of case histories. Using works by Thomas Carlyle, Wilkie Colins, Charles Dickens, Benjamin Disraeli, John Henry Newman, and others, along with periodicals, histoires, and parliamentary documents of the period, he shows the rhetorical prominence of groups such as the Freemasons, the Thugs, the Carbonari, the Fenians, and the Jesuits in Victorian democratic discourse. --book cover.