About

The Rabbi’s Atheist Daughter/ Ernestine Rose/ International Feminist Pioneer (Oxford University Press) is Bonnie S. Anderson’s fourth book in women’s history. (Read an excerpt) One of the pioneers of the field, Anderson taught history and women’s studies at Brooklyn College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York for over thirty years.

With her lifelong friend, Judith Zinsser, she co-authored A History of Their Own: Women in Europe from Prehistory to the Present (Oxford University Press). Now a classic and still in print, these two volumes were published in England, Germany, Spain, Latin America, and Italy before being revised in 2000. 

Anderson and Zinsser also wrote Women in Early Modern and Modern Europe for the American Historical Association’s series, Women's and Gender History in Global Perspective.

In 2000, Oxford published Anderson's Joyous Greetings: The First International Women's Movement, 1830-1860 (Oxford University Press) in both England and the United States. (Read an excerpt)  This lively history shows how early radical feminists in the U.S., Britain, France, and Germany linked up to form the world’s first international women’s movement. Working on this subject introduced her to Ernestine Rose, whose biography she has just completed.

Anderson gives speeches on Rose, women’s movements, international feminism, the history of sexuality, and women’s issues today. In recent years, she has lectured in the U.S., France, and Germany. Like her subjects, she combines writing with activism. She has worked as a rape crisis volunteer, to elect Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, and to support public education and women’s rights.