Mark Peterson

Mark Peterson joined the Yale history faculty in 2018.  He earned his Ph.D. in History at Harvard University and previously taught at the University of Iowa (1998-2007) and the University of California, Berkeley (2007-2018), where he served as chair of the History Department.  His most recent book is The Making and Breaking of the American Constitution: A Thousand-Year History (Princeton, 2026), and he is also the author of The City-State of Boston: The Rise and Fall of an Atlantic Power, 1630-1865 (Princeton, 2019), and The Price of Redemption: The Spiritual Economy of Puritan New England (Stanford, 1997).  He is now at work on Revolution’s Ends: A History of the American Revolution for the 21^st Century, designed to connect the war and political transformations of the late 18^th century to the explosive growth in settler population, territorial expansion, and consumption patterns that characterized this world-transforming era.  He is also completing an edited volume of the writings of John Hull, a 17^th-century Boston merchant, mint-master, and political leader, for publication by the Colonial Society of Massachusetts.  In addition, Professor Peterson also serves as co-editor for the book series, American Beginnings published by the University of Chicago Press, with twenty-five volumes published to date.   At Yale, he serves as the Faculty Director of the Lewis Walpole Library, a remarkable research collection of books, manuscripts, graphic arts, and objects related to 18^th-century British history, broadly defined.