Rebecca Gruskin

Rebecca Gruskin is an Assistant Professor of History at Hamilton College, specializing in environmental history, labor history, and the history of capitalism. Her research centers on mining industries in modern North Africa and the Middle East, with a particular focus on Tunisia.

Education:

• Ph.D., Stanford University
• M.A., Stanford University
• B.A., Harvard University

Research Focus: Gruskin’s scholarship explores how North African communities shaped the ecological and economic trajectories of capitalism. Her current book project, Capitalism’s Nature: A Global History of Mining, Empire, and Resistance in Tunisia, examines the environmental and social impacts of phosphate mining in colonial Tunisia. This work integrates themes of industrial pollution, labor resistance, anti-colonial movements, and global food production.

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

Gruskin’s work has been supported by the Council of American Overseas Research Centers and the American Institute for Maghrib Studies. She has published in the Journal of Global History and has an article forthcoming in Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East.