Hiya, before you get an answer, I think you would find this discussion of moral presentism from earlier interesting and helpful.

The linked discussion above is a good one as to why historians take this approach now. It does not directly answer your question as to whether this approach is recent. If you count the 20th century as recent, yes. If you read some old classics- like Macaulay's History of England, Hippolyte Taine's history of the French Revolution, Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire- you will find a fairly constant presence of the author as a judge. Sometimes merely pointing out mistakes with a mild finger-waging, sometimes fiercely denouncing. Sometimes pointing up exemplary behaviourand heroism. But the impression is of history to be used as a guide, owned by the present, filled with things to be ashamed of, to be proud of. From time to time someone would bravely shift a villain over to the hero side ( like Macaulay shifting Oliver Cromwell ) or try (Richard III is still getting shifted back and forth) but the historical landscape was mostly, still, heroes and villains. And, as people love to read about heroes and villains, this approach is still very much present in popular history writing.

One of the more delightful things to read in this line is the Newgate Bloody Register, an immensely popular chronicle of crimes, criminals and punishments that was reprinted and revised many times in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. One illustration from one edition shows a mother, Register in her lap, her son at her knee, pointing out the window to a gibbeted corpse, while behind her are Greek statues representing virtues. You couldn't get a better epitome of history as moral instruction....