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, Capitalism’s Nature: A Global History of Mining, Empire, and Resistance in Tunisia, shows how North African communities shaped capitalism’s more-than-human history. Grounded in the colonial Tunisian phosphate mines that nourished Europe’s appetite for chemical fertilizers, the book weaves together stories of industrial pollution, labor, anti-colonial resistance, and food production. By centering North African contexts, Capitalism’s Nature redefines what capitalism is and how it has been ecologically embedded.
Gruskin’s archival and oral historical research has been generously supported by the Council of American Overseas Research Centers and the American Institute for Maghrib Studies. She has published most recently in the Journal of Global History, and her newest article is forthcoming in Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East.
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
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
