Thomas Babington Macaulay's History of England from the Accession of James II was his masterwork and one of the great enduring classics of English historical writing. This volume contains the celebrated third chapter, which inherently contributed to the development of social history by presenting a highly contextually relevant extensive survey of English society in the year 1685, in terms of such things as population, cities, classes, and tastes.

Macaulay's approach to his subject, as John Burrow explains in his masterly introduction, was that of a definite advocate of...