Macaulay’s History was originally published in 1848 in 5 volumes, but this edition reduced that to two, without a reduction in text. The History is famous for its brilliant ringing prose and for its confident, sometimes dogmatic, emphasis on a progressive model of British history. According to this view, England threw off superstition, autocracy and confusion to create a balanced constitution and a forward-looking culture combined with freedom of belief and expression. This model of human progress has been called the Whig interpretation of history.