Dr. Nathan Perl Rosenthal

Biography

Nathan Perl-Rosenthal is an Associate Professor specializing in the history of the eighteenth and early nineteenth-century Atlantic world. His work primarily focuses on political and cultural history in Europe and the Americas during the age of revolution, with a particular emphasis on the transnational influences that shaped modern national politics. He received his PhD in history from Columbia University in 2011, where he wrote a dissertation on epistolarity and revolutionary organizing. His notable publication is 'Citizen Sailors: Becoming American in the Age of Revolution' (Belknap/Harvard, 2015), which argues that American sailors during the revolutionary era played a significant and previously unrecognized role in the formation of modern notions of nationality. The book won the Gilbert Chinard Prize from the Society of French Historical Studies for its scholarly contribution to the history themes shared between North America and France, Central, and South America. Currently, Perl-Rosenthal is developing articles on socio-legal history topics of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, including a study on a multi-million dollar piracy prosecution in 1780s Mauritius and the examination of the modern nationality law binary of jus soli and jus sanguinis. His essays and reviews have been published in several academic journals, including the William and Mary Quarterly, American Historical Review, and Journal of the Early Republic.

Research Interests