The Political Life of Bella Abzug, 1976–1998 : Electoral Failures and the Vagaries of Identity Politics

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. The Political Life of Bella Abzug, 1976{u2013}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 woman in politics in mid- and late-twentieth-century America. This second part takes up Abzug{u2019}s life from the point in 1976 when she narrowly lost her bid for the N.Y. Democratic Party{u2019}s nomination for the U.S. Senate. The biography follows her subsequent failed effort to win the Democratic Party{u2019}s nomination for Mayor of N.Y.C. in 1977, her leading a controversial National Women{u2019}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{u2019}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. --Amazon.com "The Political Life of Bella Abzug, 1920-1976: Political Passions, Women's Rights, and Congressional Battles, by Alan H. Levy, marks the first full biography of Bella Abzug. Abzug was one of, if not the most important woman in politics in mid and late 20th-century America. Levy traces the New York City world of Russian-Jewish immigrants into which Abzug was born. He then examines her education through Columbia Law School, her marriage, and her early work as a labor attorney and as an advocate for many controversial causes, including that of an African-American falsely accused of raping a white woman in Jim Crow-era Mississippi. This biography studies her work for nuclear disarmament, her activism against the Vietnam War, and her successful bid for Congress in 1970. From there the book details the myriad of issues with which she grappled as a Member of Congress from 1971 to 1977, and ends with her close loss to Daniel Patrick Moynihan in a bid for the U.S. Senate in 1976. A second book is to follow which studies the rest of Abzug's life from 1976 to 1998"--Publisher website 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 woman 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 Abzug's unsuccessful attempts to regain political prominence, and her work on behalf of women at both national and internationa