Macaulay, Thomas Babington (1800–1859)

Thomas Babington Macaulay was arguably the most influential of all the British classical liberals and a renowned historian, noted for his powerful prose. His magisterial history of England, a sensation when it first appeared, soon established itself as the standard work on its subject while his critical and historical essays were models of persuasive writing. Both commanded a worldwide mass readership long after his death and influenced the noted American journalist and essayist H. L. Mencken, among many others. Among the major themes of Macaulay's work were the cruelties and follies of arbitrary government, the harm wrought by religious strife and the persecuting spirit, and the transformative power of scientific advance and economic freedom.

Macaulay's major work, his multivolume History of England from the Accession of ...