Description
A landmark in female historiography, this work first appeared in eight volumes between 1763 and 1783. Notable for her radical politics and her influence on American revolutionary ideology, Catharine Macaulay (1731-91) drew diligently on untapped seventeenth-century sources to craft her skilful yet inevitably biased narrative. Seen as a Whig response to David Hume's Tory perspective on English history, the early volumes made Macaulay a literary sensation in the 1760s. Later instalments were less rapturously received by those critics who took exception to her republican views. Both the product and a portrait of tumultuous ages, the work maintains throughout a strong focus on the fortunes of political liberty. Volume 5 (1771) covers the momentous period following the execution of Charles I in 1649 through to the restoration of the monarchy in 1660.
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