LOUNSBERY FELLOW HONORED WITH GUIZOT PRIZE

Dutch historian and academic Iris de Rode, Ph.D., was honored today with the 2023 Guizot Prize by the Académie Française recognizing her work, "François-Jean de Chastellux, un soldat-philosophe dans le monde atlantique à l'époque des Lumières" (Paris: Honoré Champion, 2022), as the best history book of the year.

De Rode's award-winning book unveils the untold story of François-Jean de Chastellux (1734-1788), a major general in the French army who served alongside American General George Washington. For her research, de Rode drew on a collection of forgotten private archives for two centuries in the Chastellux Castle in Burgundy, which included unpublished letters from George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, James Madison, the Marquis de Lafayette, French ministers of King Louis XVI, and even correspondences with Voltaire, David Hume, and Jeremy Bentham.

The Richard Lounsbery Foundation supported Dr. de Rode's research through a fellowship at Mount Vernon.