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American historian
Rhys Llywelyn Isaac
(20 November 1937 ? 6 October 2010)
[1]
was a South African-born Australian historian of American history who also worked in the United States.
Rhys Isaac with book 1983
Isaac and his twin brother
Glynn
were born in
Cape Town, South Africa
, to William Edwyn Isaac and
Frances Margaret Leighton
, both professional botanists.
Isaac earned his B.A. and M.A. degrees from the
University of Cape Town
. In 1959 he was the Cape Province Rhodes Scholar at
Balliol College
(Oxford), earning his Ph.D. in 1962.
[2]
In 1963 Isaac emigrated to
Australia
, where he taught at the
University of Melbourne
, and later at
La Trobe University
(1971?91), where he was emeritus professor of American history. In 1975 he was a distinguished visiting professor of early American history at the
College of William & Mary
in
Williamsburg, Virginia
.
Isaac won the 1983
Pulitzer Prize
for History for his book
The Transformation of Virginia, 1740-1790
(1982), becoming the first and only Australian historian to win a
Pulitzer Prize
.
In 2004 Isaac published
Landon Carter's Uneasy Kingdom: Revolution and Rebellion on a Virginia Plantation
, which made use of the exemplary diary of a Virginian landholder and member of the
House of Burgesses
.
Death
[
edit
]
Isaac died at his home in
Blairgowrie, Victoria
, Australia, on 6 October 2010, aged 72, from cancer.
[3]
References
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