She was, clearly, a remarkable but polarising figure: politically radical; internationally celebrated, especially in America, if not notorious; a pioneer as a woman working in a male-dominated field who both insisted on the irrelevance of her gender and drew attention to it. Until yesterday, I had never heard of Catharine Macaulay (1731-91; born Sawbridge, later Graham), the eighteenth-century historian, but after a happy hour or so in the library reading some of her works I’m now something of a fan. Her eight-volume History of England interpreted it as a never-ending struggle to win back the freedom and rights that had been enjoyed by the Anglo-Saxons but then crushed by the Normans and suppressed as far as possible by every subsequent dynasty; she also anticipated Mary Wollstonecraft in arguing that the apparent inferiority of women was simply a result of their mis-education. She commented on the ideas of both Burke and Hobbes – works which I haven’t yet been able to read – and was an acquaintance of George Washington and other American revolutionaries.
Posts Tagged ‘Catharine Macaulay’
The History Woman
Posted in Research in Progress, tagged Catharine Macaulay, history, Thucydides on April 17, 2013| 4 Comments »
