Ruth Ben-Ghiat

Ruth Ben-Ghiat is a historian who writes about authoritarianism, democracy protection, and propaganda. She is Professor of History and Italian Studies at New York University, the recipient of Guggenheim, Fulbright, and other fellowships, and Advisor to Protect Democracy. She is an MSNBC opinion columnist, a regular contributor to CNN and The Washington Post, and provides live commentary on CNN, MSNBC, and other networks. She publishes Lucid, a newsletter on threats to democracy. Her latest book, Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present (2020, paperback, with new epilogue on Jan. 6, 2021), looks at how illiberal leaders use propaganda, corruption, violence, and machismo - and how they can be defeated.

John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship; Member, Institute for Advanced Study; Fulbright Research Fellowship; National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship; Kluge Fellowship, Library of Congress; Getty Research Institute Fellowship.  

“Five Faces of Fascism,” in Visualizing Fascism, eds. Geoff Eley and Julia Adeney Thomas (Durham, 2020), 94-110. 

“How Journalists Become Hate Objects,” CNN.com, June 11, 2020.

“COVID-19 Tempts Would-Be Authoritarians. But Exploiting a Pandemic Comes at a Cost,” Foreign Affairs, May 5, 2020.

“Gutting US Foreign Language Education Will Cost Us for Generations,” CNN.com, January 29, 2019.

“Moving Images: Realism and Propaganda,” in Italia 1918-1943. Lo Stato dell’Arte, ed. Germano Celant (Milan: 2018), pp.420-425.

“Why Are So Many Fascist Monuments Still Standing?” The New Yorker, October 7, 2017. 

“The Imperial Moment in Fascist Cinema,” Journal of Modern European History, vol.13, no.1 (2015): 59-78.

“Fascism’s Imperial Moment,” Journal of Contemporary European History (forthcoming 2014)

"Narrating War in Italian Fascist Cinema," in M. Mondini - M. Rospocher (eds.), Narrating War.  Perspectives from XVI - XX centuries, (Berlin and Bologna: Dunker& Humbolt/Il Mulino, 2013), pp.249-268.

"Il Lungo Novecento del colonialismo italiano," in Unita Multiple. Centocinquant'anni? Unità Italia?, ed. Marta Petruscewicz (Rubettino, forthcoming 2014).

“Italian Fascism’s Empire Cinema: Kif tebbi, The Conquest of Libya, and the Assault on the Nomadic,” in Postcolonial Cinemas, eds. Sandra Ponzanesi and Marguerite Waller (New York: Routledge, 2012), pp.20-31. Revised as “Cinema e impero,” Narrativa 33/34 (2011/2012): 55-67.

“Italian Film in the Aftermath of War and Dictatorship,” in Histories of  the Aftermath: Postwar Europe in Comparative Perspective, eds. Frank Biess and Robert Moeller (New York: Berghahn, 2010), pp.156-174.

“Un cinéma d’après-guerre: le néoréalisme italien et la transition démocratique,” Annales. Histoire, Science Sociales vol.63, no.6 (novembre-décembre 2008): 1215-1248.

“Modernity is Just Over There: Colonialism and National Identity in Italy,” Interventions. International Journal of Postcolonial Studies, vol.8, no.3 (2006): 380-383.

“Unmaking the Fascist Man: Film, Masculinity, and the Transition from Dictatorship.” Journal of Modern Italian Studies, special issue on Italian masculinity, vol. 10, no.3 (fall 2005): 336-365.

"1860," in The Cinema of Italy, ed. Giorgio Bertellini (London: Wallflower Press, 2004), 20-29.

“The Italian Colonial Cinema: Agendas and Audiences,” Modern Italy, vol.8, no.1 (May 2003), pp.49-64.

“A Lesser Evil? Italian Fascism in/and the Totalitarian Equation,” in The Lesser Evil: Moral Approaches to Genocide Practices, eds. Helmut Dubiel and Gabriel Motzkin (New York and London: Routledge, 2004), pp.137-153.

“Die italienischen Universitäten in der Diktatur Mussolinis,” in Zwischen Autonomie und Anpassung: Universitäten in den Diktaturen des 20 Jahrhunderts, eds. Michael Grüttner and John Connelly (Paderborn: Ferdinand Schoeningh), pp.39-66. Revised as “Italian Universities during Mussolini’s Regime,” in Michael Grüttner and John Connelly, eds., Universities and Modern Dictatorships (Pennsylvania State Press, 2005), pp. 45-73. 2002.

“Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany: The Dynamics of an Uneasy Relationship,” in Art, Culture, and the Media in the Third Reich, ed. Richard Etlin (Chicago: University of Chicago Press), pp.257-286.

"The Fascist War Trilogy" in Roberto Rossellini: Magician of the Real, eds. D. Forgacs, S. Lutton, and G. Nowell-Smith (London: British Film Institute, 2000).

"Liberation: Film and the Flight from the Italian Past, 1945-1950," in Italian Fascism: History, Memory, and Representation, eds. R. Bosworth and P. Dogliani (New York: St. Martins Press, 1999).

"The Secret Histories of Roberto Benigni’s Life is Beautiful," Yale Journal of Criticism (April 2001).

"The Italian Cinema and the Italian Working-Class," International Labor and Working-Class History (April 2001).

"Envisioning Modernity: Desire and Discipline in the Italian Fascist Film," Critical Inquiry (Autumn 1996).

"Fascism, Writing, and Memory: The Realist Aesthetic in Italy, 1930-1950," Journal of Modern History (September 1995).

"Italian Fascism and the Aesthetics of the Third Way," Journal of Contemporary History (April 1996).