Purchase Battling Bella from the link below, or to book the author for an event you can reach Dr. Zarnow through the contact page linked above!
Leandra Ruth Zarnow is an Associate Professor in the Department of History at the University of Houston. An award-winning teacher and scholar with wide-ranging interests, she is a specialist in US women’s political, legal, and intellectual history. She enjoys being in conversation with people who believe that community-centered scholarship makes a difference. She brings this approach to her work in US and global gender, media and archival studies, digital humanities, and public history.
Leandra is the author of Batting Bella: The Protest Politics of Bella Abzug (Harvard University Press, 2019), a political biography of New York’s firebrand trailblazer Representative Bella Abzug. Along with historian Stacie Taranto, she also co-edited the collection, Suffrage at 100: Women in American Politics Since 1920 (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2020).
Leandra also co-leads an exciting website and archive building project to document 150,000+ participant biographies and the legacy of the 1977 National Women’s Conference. Held in Houston, Texas, this conference was the first and only federally funded gathering of its kind and arguably the most diverse. The report debated and passed, The Spirit of Houston, outlined issues—from LGBTQ and disability rights to childcare and reproductive health—that matter today. Check out the ever-evolving Sharing Stories from 1977 project.
Leandra frequently comments on women in politics and women’s issues. She seeks to bridge academic, activist, and community spaces in her work on and off university campuses.
Here’s what other historians and critics are saying about Battling Bella…
“Zarnow sketches a vibrant picture of Abzug’s tumultuous era and draws apt comparisons between her firebrand subject and the latest crop of progressive congresswomen.”―Publishers Weekly
“Bella Abzug speaks to our times from this well-wrought biography by historian Leandra Zarnow. Abzug knew progressive change is a not a sprint but a lifetime struggle in which racial and gender equity, economic justice, and peace belong together.”―Nancy MacLean, author of Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America
“Readers struggling against the current subversion of freedom and democracy in the U.S. and abroad will find in ‘Battling Bella’ a member of the resistance worthy of rediscovery.”―Jane Sherron De Hart, author of Ruth Bader Ginsburg: A Life
“Zarnow has produced a compelling account of a powerful female politician who fought for peace, racial justice, and gender equality.”―Estelle B. Freedman, author of No Turning Back: The History of Feminism and the Future of Women
”Battling Bella is political biography at its best”— Marjorie Spruill, author of Divided We Stand: The Battle Over Women’s Rights and Family Values That Polarized American Politics.
Available in e-book and hardback. For information about Battling Bella at Leandra Zarnow’s author page at Harvard University Press.
Media
Leandra Zarnow has been featured on nationally recognized radio and television broadcasts and in print media. Look here for op-eds and interviews.
Research
Go on the research trail with Leandra, learning about how she wrote past books and how she is approaching current projects. You will also find out what she is reading and excited about in history and today.
Events
Hear Leandra speak at college campuses, conferences, bookstores, clubs, and museums. Find information about previous and future appearances, book signings, issues of interest, and more.
More About Me
Leandra is a writer, passionate educator, artist, and dog mom. She loves everything women’s history and hopes others catch the fire.