The Political Life of Bella Abzug, 1976–1998

Electoral Failures and the Vagaries of Identity Politics

Alan H. Levy

The Political Life of Bella Abzug, 1976–1998 is the second part of the first full biography of Bella Abzug. Alan H. Levy explores the political life of one of the most important women in politics in mid- and late-twentieth-century America. This second part takes up Abzug’s life from the point in 1976 when she narrowly lost her bid for the N.Y. Democratic Party’s nomination for the U.S. Senate. The biography follows her subsequent failed effort to win the Democratic Party’s nomination for Mayor of N.Y.C. in 1977, her leading a controversial National Women’s Convention in Houston in late 1977, her failed attempt to return to the U.S. Congress in 1978, and her conflicts with President Jimmy Carter and his administration. The biography then traces the efforts in which Abzug was engaged to regain political prominence, and her work on behalf of women at both national and international levels. Through the events in Abzug’s life, Levy explores tensions that surrounded the contrasts between political principles, which idealized a world in which gender posed no barriers to any human effort, and political views, which sought to extol and develop notions of gender and of ideas about its special meanings in human affairs and politics.

Lexington Books

Pages: 376 • Trim: 6 x 9

978-0-7391-8724-1 • Hardback • December 2013 • $142.00 • (£109.00)

978-0-7391-8725-8 • eBook • December 2013 • $134.50 • (£104.00)

Subjects: History / Modern / 20th Century, History / Social History, Political Science / History & Theory, Political Science / Women in Politics, History / Women

The Political Life of Bella Abzug, 1976–1998

Electoral Failures and the Vagaries of Identity Politics

Hardback

eBook

Summary

The Political Life of Bella Abzug, 1976–1998 is the second part of the first full biography of Bella Abzug. Alan H. Levy explores the political life of one of the most important women in politics in mid- and late-twentieth-century America. This second part takes up Abzug’s life from the point in 1976 when she narrowly lost her bid for the N.Y. Democratic Party’s nomination for the U.S. Senate. The biography follows her subsequent failed effort to win the Democratic Party’s nomination for Mayor of N.Y.C. in 1977, her leading a controversial National Women’s Convention in Houston in late 1977, her failed attempt to return to the U.S. Congress in 1978, and her conflicts with President Jimmy Carter and his administration. The biography then traces the efforts in which Abzug was engaged to regain political prominence, and her work on behalf of women at both national and international levels. Through the events in Abzug’s life, Levy explores tensions that surrounded the contrasts between political principles, which idealized a world in which gender posed no barriers to any human effort, and political views, which sought to extol and develop notions of gender and of ideas about its special meanings in human affairs and politics.

Details

Lexington Books

Pages: 376 • Trim: 6 x 9

978-0-7391-8724-1 • Hardback • December 2013 • $142.00 • (£109.00)

978-0-7391-8725-8 • eBook • December 2013 • $134.50 • (£104.00)

Subjects: History / Modern / 20th Century, History / Social History, Political Science / History & Theory, Political Science / Women in Politics, History / Women

Author

Alan H. Levy is professor of American history at Slippery Rock University in Pennsylvania where he has taught modern American history for thirty years.

Table of Contents

Introduction
Chapter I. Madame Mayor
Chapter II. A Very Expensive Memo: Houston and Its Discontents
Chapter III. This Jinxed Hotel Again
Chapter IV. No Good, No Good at All
Chapter V. Conundrums on the Periphery
Chapter VI. Gender Gap
Chapter VII. Keeping Faith All the Way to Nairobi
Chapter VIII. Presumptuous Irrelevance in Geneva
Chapter IX. Later Years: Martin's Passing and More Identity Politics
Chapter X. International Patronage
Chapter XI. Epilogue and Legacy
Selected Bibliography