The Whig interpretation of history of 1688
as the onward march of progress to the Anglo-American capitalist triumph found
its finest expression in the self-confidence of mid-19th Century Victorian England, exemplified by Thomas Macaulay‟s History of England from the Accession of James II, the first two volumes of which appeared in 1848. The book opens with a clear synopsis of Whig determinism on 1688 and it is worth quoting in full [italics added] since new institutional economics is unconsciously living in its shadow: