Pete studies the connections between early America and the early Caribbean, the American Revolution, and the early modern British empire. He is interested in questions regarding slavery and the slave trade, political economy, and the slippage between political theory and imperial policy. In the past, he has worked on projects ranging from book history and the material culture of the Federalist Papers to Charles Dickens and western land speculation during the U.S. antebellum period.

Pete’s current project centers on the political, economic, and social connections between Massachusetts and Jamaica in the years leading up to the outbreak of the American Revolution. His dissertation focuses on the imperial reform measures of the British empire in the wake of the Seven Years’ War and seeks to place the American Revolution in a wider Atlantic and imperial context. He is particularly interested in the languages of slavery and anti-slavery, identity formation among mainland and island colonists, and the role of the West India interest in imperial politics.

Pete can be reached at pellizzari@g.harvard.edu