SOURCE: “Catharine Macaulay and the Uses of History: Ancient Rights, Perfectionism, and Propaganda,” in The Journal of British Studies, Vol. 16, No. 1, Fall, 1976, pp. 59-83.

In the following essay, Withey argues that Macaulay's History of England can be best understood by considering the author's social, political, and religious idealism, and notes that Macaulay considered historical analysis to be the best means for conveying the possibility of human political, moral, and institutional perfection.

Late eighteenth-century London was a center of political debate, expressed variously in countless pamphlets, in coffee house discussions, and in extra-parliamentary political organizations. Intellectuals and political activists who argued about the problems of ministerial corruption and relations with the colonies had great faith in the power of reasoned discourse and the development of knowledge to improve the human condition. Most of them were interested in science and religion as well as politics. They were part of that...