Ethel Rosenberg: Beyond the Myths - Softcover

Philipson, Ilene

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0813519179 ISBN 13: 9780813519173

Publisher: Rutgers University Press, 1992

Synopsis

Ilene Philipson's biography of Ethel Rosenberg, only the second woman in U.S. history to be executed for treason,  is now available in paperback for the first time. 

"Contributes to women's history and biography and to radical history, particularly to our understanding of family, gender relations, and feminine identity of women radicals. . . . Ilene Philipson has produced a fascinating book"--Nancy Chodorow  

"Tells the story of Ethel . . . from a woman's point of view. . . . Philipson, whose literary style has the clean exactitude of a tracer bullet, has produced a heart-rending masterpiece.  If you read only one book a year, make it this one."

--Florence King, Newsday                            

"[Ethel Rosenberg's] stoicism on the witness stand, her unflinching response to the guilty verdict and death sentence, and her seeming indifference to the ordeal of her two children shocked the nation. . . . Concerned with rehabilitating not only Ethel Rosenberg's name, but also her image, the author creates a moving portrait of a human and ordinary woman."--John Patrick Diggins, New York Times Book Review

About this title

From the Back Cover:

This is a book about women's history and biography and to radical history, particularly to our understanding of family and gender relations and female self-understanding of women radicals.

From Publishers Weekly:

According to Philipson, who teaches at UC Berkeley, it is impossible to sort truth from the lies and circumstantial evidence in the Rosenberg espionage case. Rather than search for clues to Ethel and Julius Rosenberg's guilt or innocence in passing atomic-bomb secrets to the Russians, the author of this empathic biography probes her subject's mind-set. The Ethel Rosenberg we meet is a rebellious actress-singer turned Communist, later a dowdy, neurotic housewife who wore "cheap, shapeless house dresses," made her sons dependent on her through overpermissiveness and never disagreed with her husband on anything of consequence. Julius Rosenberg, the author charges, combined a misplaced trust in the workings of justice with naivete about how to present himself effectively. David Greenglass, Ethel's brother, who helped send her to the electric chair, was "foolish, trusting, and childlike." Philipson overwrites and makes snap judgments, but her psychobiography is unusually intimate. It will rattle supporters who view the Rosenbergs as leftist martyrs, as well as detractors who condemn them as agents of Stalin.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Rutgers University Press
• Publication date: 1992
• ISBN 10: 0813519179
• ISBN 13: 9780813519173
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 390