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Patricia A. O’Brien, who was born in Darlinghurst, Sydney, is a historian and writer on Australia, New Zealand, and the Pacific Islands. She is the author of Errol Flynn: The True Story of Australia's Hollywood Icon (2026); Tautai: Sāmoa, World History and the Life and Ta’isi O. F. Nelson (2017), The Pacific Muse: Exotic Femininity and the Colonial Pacific (2006), and is co-editor of League of Nations: Histories, Legacies and Impact (2018) and numerous other works. She has taught Australian and Pacific history at Georgetown University, Washington DC since 2000 and held the Jay I. Kislak Fellow in American Studies at the John W. Kluge Center at the Library of Congress, the J. D. Stout Fellow in New Zealand Studies at Victoria University Wellington in 2012 and an Australian Research Council Future Fellow in the School of History, Australian National University, Canberra until 2019. She has written extensively on regional issues for The Conversation and The Diplomat and appears regularly in international media as a commentator.