Ruth Ben-Ghiat | |
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![]() Ben-Ghiat in 2019 | |
Born | United States | April 17, 1960
Occupations |
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Awards | Guggenheim Fellowship (2004) |
Academic background | |
Alma mater | |
Thesis | The formation of a Fascist culture: the Realist movement in Italy, 1930–43 (1991) |
Academic work | |
Discipline | |
Institutions | New York University |
Main interests | |
Notable works | Strongmen:Mussolini to the Present |
Website | ruthbenghiat |
Ruth Ben-Ghiat (born April 17,1960) is an American history professor and political commentator. She is a scholar on fascism and authoritarian leaders. [1] Ben-Ghiat is a professor of history and Italian studies at New York University.
Born in the United States to a Scottish mother and an Israeli Sephardi Jewish father,she grew up in Pacific Palisades,California. [2] [3] [4] She has a history degree from UCLA and obtained her Ph.D. in comparative history at Brandeis University. A member of the American Historical Association since 1990, [5] she is a professor of history and Italian studies at New York University. [6] She regularly writes for CNN, The Atlantic ,and The Huffington Post . [7] She is an advisor to Protect Democracy,an organization opposing attacks on U.S. democracy. [8]
Ben-Ghiat was the Spring 2023 Dan and Maggie Inouye Distinguished Chair in Democratic Ideals at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. [9]
When you grow up in Southern California with immigrant parents (Scottish mother, Israeli father) and your closest non-nuclear family members are all 11–14 hours away by plane, you know that seeing family is a luxury...Any available vacation time and money my parents had were spent going to England (where many of my parents' siblings lived) and to Israel, sometimes on the same trip.