The Transformation of Virginia, 1740-1790

The Transformation of Virginia, 1740–1790 is a 1982 nonfiction book by Australian historian Rhys Isaac, published by the University of North Carolina Press. The book describes the religious and political changes over a half-century of Virginian history, particularly the shift from "the great cultural metaphor of patriarchy" to a greater emphasis on communalism. In this Pulitzer Prize-winning book, Rhys Isaac chronicles dramatic confrontations with the use of many “observational techniques of the cultural anthropologist”. Isaac historically recreates and dissects Virginian society when moments of profound changes were taking place. This book is said to be a landmark of cultural history and “has inspired many subsequent historians to incorporate ethnography into their methods of inquiry”. Isaac's account of Virginia's historical transformation provides avid descriptions of “Virginia’s social life and customs”. Many of the book's original reviewers questioned the absence of “innovative studies of early American religious life” in The Transformation of Virginia. Some reviewers claim that Isaac's “treatment of causality in Virginia history remains The Transformation of Virginia's central weakness”.