The Transformation of Virginia, 1740-1790

by Rhys Isaac

In this Pulitzer Prize-winning book, Rhys Isaac describes and analyzes the dramatic confrontations--primarily religious and political--that transformed Virginia in the second half of the eighteenth century. Making use of the observational techniques of the cultural anthropologist, Isaac vividly recreates and painstakingly dissects a society in the turmoil of profound inner change.

Genres: History, American History, Nonfiction, American Revolution, School, 18th Century, American Revolutionary War

491 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1982

About the author

Rhys Llywelyn Isaac (20 November 1937 – 6 October 2010) was a South African-born Australian historian, who also worked in the United States.

Isaac and his twin brother Glynn were born in Cape Town, South Africa, to William Edwyn Isaac and Frances Leighton Isaac. Rhys Isaac was the 1959 Cape Province Rhodes Scholar at Balliol College (Oxford).

In 1963 he emigrated to Australia, where he taught at the University of Melbourne and later at La Trobe University (1971-91). He also was Emeritus Professor of American History at La Trobe University, and a Distinguished Visiting Professor of Early American History at the College of William & Mary, in Williamsburg, Virginia.

In 1983, Rhys Isaac won the Pulitzer Prize for History for his book The Transformation of Virginia, 1740-1790. He remains the only Australian historian ever to win a Pulitzer Prize. 2005 saw the publication of Isaac's 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.

Reviews

[Jay Wright · Rating 4 out of 5]

There is a reason this won the Pulitzer. I have always believed that as a historian, what the regular persons did was more reflective of the society at the times. This is a book about "people doing things" from the period of 1740 to 1790 in Virginia. From religion to architecture, from daily diaries to pastimes, and from the courthouse to the newspapers, the book goes into the why these were revolutionary times. This work is brilliant and maybe the best book in this period about what life was really like in the crucial period.

[Philip Levy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Still a really interesting read though it is showing its age. The problem is simple--we only can go from there to here if there really was a there in the first place. Engaging as these pioneering close reads are, the overall argument depends on the "traditional" society having been a real place. Since the early 1980s we have gotten so much better at understanding subaltern peoples that I am not sure isaac's "before" is as convicting as once it was. Even so, this land mark is still a must read and not likely to lose that status soon.

[Geoff Sebesta · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is one of those books that is so important that you have to read it, but so long and dense that it stuns your reading list into incomprehension. It took me two years and three tries to get through it, and by the time I was done whatever overarching point the author was trying to make was sadly lost.

However, the devil's in the details, and a fine devil it is. I can't name many books with as transformative a view of pre- and post-Revolution Virginia. This book doesn't take sides in the great controversy of our time (how much of the American Revolution was a co-opted slave rebellion?) but it does a wonderful job of setting the stage. By concentrating on the great immutables, like architecture and patterns of habitation, and focusing on items of undeniable contemporary importance, like ecclesiastic disputes, it leaves the reader with a clearer idea of the background upon which this all happened.

There is sadly little time spent exclusively on the slaves and servants, but the discussion of the architecture makes it clear that they both exist and are ignored. One particularly telling passage about the difference in the appearance of Virginia between a man on foot and a man on horseback stands out as my favorite thing about the book.

Looking back through this three pound chunk of solid information, both covers worn off by a year of reading a page at a time, I have to say the sections on hospitality and religion were the most interesting. I've always known who Patrick Henry was but never knew where he came from. Turns out that's because where he came from is really, really complicated.

[Dayla · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent picture of Virginia down deep.

[Stephen · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wanted to get an idea of colonial life in the south and I got one. I enjoyed emphases on living life face to face and the importance of acting out the self-image of a society. I also liked the idea of revolutionary patriotism developing as a response to great awakening era destabilization. After a critical description of Virginia before its transformation, I was surprised to see the author lovingly describe the good that had been lost too.
The author clearly thinks the idea of a cultural history is pretty radical, but I don't know if it made for radically different reading. Its self-consciously academic approach made for dry reading overall and lent itself to specific clunky, over explicit phrases like "Residences were highly significant places in the social landscape". It also seemed a little over-corrected from conventional histories, trying its best not to mention the revolution, the founding fathers, or the British unless it absolutely had to.

[Jason Adams · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting contrast across the decades with "Covered With Night," which I finished just before picking up this volume. Isaac situates many of the structural iniquities of colonial times as the product of a different worldview. Slavery and the gap between the wealthy and laboring class are described and studied as contextualized phenomena. Indians are not deeply described. Eustace's volume has some overlap with the colonial governors and officers, yet provides a deeper context of Native American engagement that Isaac largely ignores. "Night" is also careful to discuss slavery with a sense of oprobrium.
Beyond that, this book does a good job setting the context for the original Virginia colony, then describing the impact of religious and patriotic movements.

[Maureen · Rating 3 out of 5]

The part that Virginia played in the Revolution and creation of the new nation has been both romanticized and demonized until it is almost impossible to get to the truth on who these people were and what they did. Isaac, (as an Australian History Reader) offer a fresh sociological perspective on this chapter in American history. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it.

[Paul · Rating 2 out of 5]

Long and boring

[Whiteraven191 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Content and trigger warnings: slavery, imperialism, racism, eye injury (mentioned), physical assault, sexual harassment(mentioned), alcoholism (mentioned)

[Adele · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read this book last year, Loved it!

[Zoë · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rhys Isaac writes intending “…to review in social-cultural context the double revolution in religious and political though and feeling that took place in the second half of the eighteenth century.” Connecting different observations of the changing views of society and life, Isaac traces the political and religious transformations in Virginia. Utilizing religious essays, statements on the politics of religion and political philosophy, personal diaries, letters, and other secondary sources, Isaac tries to illustrate a beliefs, morals and goals in Virginia, a society that was questioning traditional religious institutions.
Isaac uses a theater model to write about the ethnographic history of Virginia. He approaches the history of Virginia in terms of understanding life e as it was lived through “’…actors’ on past ‘stages,’ each playing his or her own part, and responding to the roles of others in ways that expressed their particular conceptions of the nature of the ‘play’” Isaac sought to recreate experiences of the past actors to present his research. In this sense, The Transformation of Virginia is similarly written to The Death and Rebirth of the Seneca in taking an anthropological approach to writing history.
In order to characterize the society of Virginia from 1740-1790, Isaac sought to illustrate behavior, not obscure written documents. He describes different lifesyles- land ownership, diet, travel, day to day tasks, ceremonies, worship- characterizing class and social structure. Isaac establishes that the Church of England and its system of influence played a fundamental role in Virginia society. Isaac writes, “The crisis of the Church and the helplessness of its adherents therefore had broad implications. Helplessness breeds resentment and recrimination, so that a house threatened is frequently a house divided. The Church of England in Virginia conformed to this pattern.” Dissent against the clergy resulted the discovery of the lack of support from England, and revealed to the Virginia gentry that they could not place their interests with the church and state since the legitimate authorities for these institutions were in England. Isaac writes about the events leading up to the Revolution in terms of societal and religious changes, which ultimately led to the raise of Evangelicalism. Isaac writes, “A deep-lying connection between popular evangelicalism and patriot republicanism can be more certainly established if we consider certain shared orientations. Viewed as social forms and as cultural expressions, the contrast and opposition between the values of the evangelicals and the patriots is striking, but both seem to have met a general need for relief from collective anxiety and perceived disorder. The two ideologies struck common chords…The patriots attested their participation in revitalized community by signing self-denying “associations.” The evangelicals did so by bringing to meeting the humble testimony of hearts regenerated by God’s grace.”

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was frustrating...I started it and stopped, started again, skipped to the end, looked at all the pictures (there are pictures!), read parts of various chapters, used some of what I found in a long historiography paper, and then finally decided I was done with this book for now. I probably will need it again though, at some point. Isaac argues that the religious revolution that took place in Virginia starting in the 1760s had a direct influence on the political revolution that started a decade later. He is more able than most historians to finagle some evidence together that the Great Awakening had something to do with the American Revolution, because he writes that the New Light Baptists, still all fired up by the religious upheaval of the 1740s, didn't start to infiltrate the long-settled, gentrified parts of Virginia until the 1760s, which was (obviously) right before the Revolution. As the NL Baptists gained adherents, they weakened the hierarchical structure of society. People lessened their deference to gentry. The rights and responsibilities of the individual began to take precedence.
There are lots of interesting things here, and I like the way Isaac brings the African-American population into the mix (at least, he brings them in a little). He is also interested in the changing landscape, which is refreshing. There is some fascinating stuff, particularly early on, about how the social structure was inscribed on the landscape and in the buildings and how that changed as well because of religious trends. In the end, though, I'm not 100% convinced that there was all that much connection between these Baptists and the revolutionary moment. The problem is shared with so many others who try to argue for a connection between revival and revolution. We had a big revival. Then we had a big revolution. It is easy to think that they HAVE to be connected somehow. And maybe they were. But it is extremely hard to make that connection, though historians try and try.

[Samuel · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a Pulitzer Prize winning work in history and it shows. Rhys Isaac employs his technique of dramaturgy--depicting the "theaters" of history before fleshing out the events and developments of the society with evidence from traditional written texts. In other words, Isaac details the environment, architecture, clothing, gestures, and other material culture details of Virginia society before moving forward with the social, political, and economic developments of more traditional histories. In doing so, it strengthens his overarching argument by showing how these diverse evidences reinforce one another. The Transformation of Virginia in general moves from a colonial and provincial system of tobacco farming based upon a slave labor supporting an elite gentry class patterned on English manners and tastes to an evangelical (Baptist) society that struggles toward a more egalitarian society in its support for and beyond the American Revolution. Isaac's organization and command of sources are truly impressive. His visual evidence is clearly illustrative of the points he is arguing by them. This is a great history of 18th century Virginian intellectual, environmental, social, and economic history.

*(1-193, 299-310)

[Emily · Rating 2 out of 5]

An historical application of cultural anthropological methods, Isaac depicts in this highly readable book the landscape of Virginia and the daily lives, interactions, and spaces of the gentry and the worker within it, before and after the religious and political upheaval of the latter quarter of the 18th century -- the rise of the comparatively more populist Baptist and Methodist movements and the Revolutionary War, as well as the creation of a new nation that followed it. In this way, he traces what he argues is the transformation of Virginia from a communal system of hierarchy, patriarchy, and conviviality to an individualistic one based on contractual agreements, paternalism, and privatized domesticity.

A book more of its time (1983) than our own, Isaac's telling of history focuses nearly exclusively on the experiences of white men. The slave experience is addressed briefly here and there, but reads as if from a distinctly white perspective. Even in discussions of the home, dining, and domesticity, women and the broader role of gender is only tangentially discussed.

[Paulm · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a great book. You won't be reading this one in one sitting, but it will interest the heck out of an American history buff. The architectural history was especially interesting. Must read for anyone with an interest in 18th century American culture.

[Stephan P Zacharias · Rating 3 out of 5]

Apparently this book is the "bible" to most of my co-workers and supervisors, it is a good book at putting the history of Virginia in context in a simple and readable fashion.

[Pablo · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm not really a fan of religious history, which much of this is. I has good info and I have no problem with the authors argument, I just thought it was less than interesting.

[Sean Chick · Rating 3 out of 5]

I feel I should have liked this book more, and I appreciate the effort and unique style. However, it is very long winded and ultimately I'm not sure he is right about Virginia politics.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

American history