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Ruth Ben-Ghiat (b. 1960) was grew up Pacific Palisades, California, and received a BA in history from the University of California, Los Angeles, as well as a PhD in comparative history at Brandeis University. Ben-Ghiat is currently a professor of History and Italian Studies at New York University. She is the author of several books and essays on both Italian history and authoritarian regimes.
Ben-Ghiat’s works include La cultura fascista (2000), Fascist Modernities: Italy, 1922-1945 (2002), Italian Fascism’s Empire Cinema (2015), and Strongmen: From Mussolini to the Present (2020). She also served as the editor for the essay collections Italian Colonialism (2005) and Italian Mobilities (2015).
Ben-Ghiat’s work in analyzing and exposing authoritarian regimes has earned her recognition from the Guggenheim, where she was awarded a fellowship in 2004, and the National Endowment for the Humanities. She also founded Lucid, a newsletter dedicated to reporting on threats to democracy, has served as an advisor to several non-profit political organizations such as Protect Democracy, and has written op-eds for several news outlets, including MSNBC, CNN, The Economist, The New Yorker, The Washington Post, and The Atlantic.
