Rebecca Gruskin
Assistant Professor of History
Rebecca Gruskin’s scholarship spans environmental history, labor history, and the history of capitalism, focusing on mining industries in modern North Africa and the Middle East.
Her current book project, Extracting Tunisia: Phosphate Mining and the Making of Modern Agriculture, explores how our understanding of modern agriculture changes when we trace its twentieth-century history from the perspective of a Tunisian phosphate mine, where a French colonial company extracted this key fertilizer ingredient, and where North African mineworkers and small farmers tried to craft a sustainable future in the shadow of an extractive industry.
Gruskin’s archival and oral historical research has been generously supported by the American Council of Learned Societies, the Council of American Overseas Research Centers, and the American Institute for Maghrib Studies. She has published most recently in Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East and the Journal of Global History.
Prior to joining Hamilton, Gruskin was a postdoctoral fellow in global history at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario.
Recent Courses Taught
A Global History of Oil
Global Environmental History
Agriculture and Empire in the Global South
Environmental History in the Middle East and North Africa
Labor Migration in North Africa and the Middle East
Environmental History in Modern Africa
Distinctions
- ACLS Fellowship, American Council of Learned Societies (2026-27)
Professional Affiliations
American Institute for Maghrib Studies
Middle East Studies Association
French Colonial Historical Society
African Studies Association
National Women’s Studies Association
American Society for Environmental History
Professional Experience
Postdoctoral Fellow in Global History, Queen’s University at Kingston
Appointed to the Faculty
2022Educational Background
Ph.D., Stanford University
M.A., Stanford University
B.A., Harvard University
