Thomas Macaulay, Liberal Futurist

For the history of our country during the last hundred and sixty years is eminently the history of physical, of moral, and of intellectual improvement.” These are not the words of Steven Pinker or any other contemporary Davos-attending technocrat. Rather, they come from Baron Thomas Macaulay, the 19-century British historian and politician. Macaulay’s name may no longer be familiar, but the type of triumphalist history he helped pioneer endures. His most famous text, 1848’s The History of England, was a best-seller in its time in both Britain and the United States, delighting audiences with a sweeping tale of heroism and technological advancement. The History guaranteed Macaulay fame during his lifetime, to the extent that his bust adorns the façade of  the Library of Congress, alongside those of Dante and Ralph Waldo Emerson, among others.