Ruth Ben-Ghiat

Author of Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present

Ruth Ben-Ghiat is professor of history and Italian studies at New York University. She writes about authoritarianism, propaganda, and democracy protection. She is the recipient of Guggenheim and other fellowships and is a frequent media commentator. She publishes Lucid, a Substack newsletter on threats to democracy in the US and abroad.

Her latest book is the New York Times bestseller Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present (2020), which examines how authoritarian leaders use corruption, violence, propaganda, and machismo to stay in power and how resistance to them has unfolded over a century.

Ben-Ghiat is a consultant for television and film productions, including the Academy Award-winning movie Pinocchio (Guillermo del Toro, 2022), and the Netflix docuseries Hitler and the Nazis: Evil on Trial (Joe Berlinger, 2024).

As an advisor to Protect Democracy, Ben-Ghiat was part of a 2019 amicus curiae brief in the context of PEN America’s lawsuit against the Trump administration’s attempts to stifle press freedoms, and she advises civil society organizations, including churches and multinational corporations, that face autocratic interferences in the US and around the world. And in January 2024, she coauthored an amicus brief submitted to the Supreme Court on the January 6 insurrection as seen through the lens of the history of international anti-democratic violence.

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