Author and historian Douglas Brinkley, a longtime New Orleans resident whose book "The Great Deluge" took a critical look at the government response to Hurricane Katrina, is leaving Tulane University to become a tenured professor at Rice University in Houston.

At Rice, Brinkley will teach classes on the history of civil rights, the U.S. presidency, and environmental history.

Brinkley's Los Angeles-based publicist referred questions on why Brinkley decided to change universities to Brinkley himself. A message left with the historian was not immediately returned.

When Brinkley told Tulane officials he was considering an offer from Rice, Tulane made a counter offer, university spokesman Michael Strecker said.

"He told us he was very torn and that he would have liked to have stayed but, in the end, felt he needed to go to Rice," Strecker said. "We will miss Professor Brinkley and wish him every success."

Brinkley has lived in New Orleans since 1993. He taught at the University of New Orleans, where he became a protege of the late Stephen E. Ambrose, who wrote numerous best-sellers including "D-Day," and founded the National World War II Museum in New Orleans.

Brinkley co-authored several books with Ambrose and, in recent years, has published many more of his own, including "Tour of Duty: John Kerry and the Vietnam War" and "The Boys of Pointe du Hoc."

When Ambrose died in 2002, Brinkley took over as the director of the Eisenhower Center at the University of New Orleans, then went across town to Tulane, where he was director of the Theodore Roosevelt Center for American Civilization.

"The Great Deluge" recently won the Robert F. Kennedy book award, given to authors who advance the causes of civil or human rights. The book documented the struggle of New Orleans residents, many of them poor and black, to get help in the chaotic days after Katrina flooded nearly 80 percent of the city.

Brinkley also edited "The Reagan Diaries," which is scheduled for release on May 22.

(Copyright 2007 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)