Ethel Rosenberg

January 1, 2021

Author of the award-winning Les Parisiennes: Resistance, Collaboration, and the Women of Paris Under Nazi Occupation, Sebba draws on new information as she turns her attention to Ethel Rosenberg, executed with her husband in June 1953 for conspiracy to commit espionage for the Soviet Union. With a 100,000-copy first printing.

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Starred review from June 1, 2021
Betrayed by her family, accused of espionage, subjected to an appalling miscarriage of justice during the Cold War outbreak of political extremism and toxic lies, and condemned to death by electrocution, along with her husband, Julius, Ethel Rosenberg vowed "to die with honor and dignity." Sebba, an accomplished biographer specializing in besieged women, portrays Ethel Greenglass Rosenberg in her own right in meticulous detail and through fresh and incisive analysis. Ethel's Lower East Side childhood was poisoned by her unloving mother, who much preferred her sons, especially David, whose lies about his sister led to her cruel death. A brilliant student passionate about music, Ethel dreamed of attending college, but instead she had to work, becoming active in the labor movement, which brought her and Julius together. Sebba tracks the treacherous path to spying for the Soviet Union taken by Julius and his brother-in-law, who worked at Los Alamos, while Ethel channeled all her thwarted ambitions into raising their two young sons destined to be orphaned. Sebba vividly contrasts Ethel, who always put others first and whose poise during her nightmarish trial was used against her, with her devious accusers and rabid prosecutors. Ultimately, Sebba places the martyrdom of Ethel Rosenberg, a "profoundly moral woman," on the long scroll of anti-Semitic and sexist atrocities, creating a redefining and redemptive work of astute protest and caution.

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Starred review from April 1, 2021
The short, heartbreaking life of a woman caught in the meat grinder of history. Like British biographer and journalist Sebba, many readers first encountered Ethel Rosenberg (1915-1953) through E.L. Doctorow's fictionalized account in The Book of Daniel (1971) or in Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar (1963) and came away with a general romantic impression that she was a martyr. This riveting biography, pulling together decades of previous work on the Rosenbergs as well as chilling new evidence released in 2014, fills in the blanks and proves the case. As Sebba demonstrates, Ethel was certainly a communist, as were many liberals in her pre-McCarthy era, but she was not a spy, as was her husband, Julius. The author's sharp portrait of Julius is decidedly unflattering, whether he is slavering for the approval of his Russian handlers or keeping silent about his wife's (non)role to increase his own meager chances of survival. On the other hand, it's clear that the importance of the information he passed was exaggerated and executing him for it was barbaric. Though a juror saw Ethel as "a steely, stony, tight-lipped woman...the mastermind" of the operation, Sebba suggests that nothing could be further from the truth. What took her down was her unshakeable loyalty to her husband and a shockingly weak legal defense against Roy Cohn and a team of prosecution hotshots, plus a hanging judge. The author compellingly narrates Ethel's early life, the course of her relationship with the brother whose perjury sent her to the electric chair, and both her difficulties as a mother and her commitment to overcoming them. Could there be a better time to review "what can happen when fear, a forceful and blunt weapon in the hands of authority, turns to hysteria and justice is willfully ignored"? A concise yet thorough account of a 1953 miscarriage of justice with alarming relevance today.

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