Ethel Rosenberg: Beyond the Myths

by Ilene Philipson

Overview

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

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780813519173
Publisher:	Rutgers University Press
Publication date:	12/01/1992
Edition description:	REPRINT
Pages:	408
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

ILENE PHILIPSON is a sociologist in residence at the Beatrice M. Bain Research Group, University of California at Berkeley, and a clinical psychologist in private practice in Berkeley. She is also the co-editor of Women, Class, and the Feminist Imagination.

Table of Contents

Introduction
Ethel Greenglass 1915-1939
Chapter One. Beginnings
Chapter Two. A Gathering of Fantasies
Chapter Three. From Art to Politics
Chapter Four. Strike! 
Chapter Five. "Il Bacio" and the Revolution
Chapter Six. Julius Rosenberg
Chapter Seven. Love, at Last
Ethel Rosenberg 1939-1950
Chapter Eight. The Wall That Shields
Chapter Nine. Settling Down
Chapter Ten. The Perfect Mother
Chapter Eleven. Hard Times
Chapter Twelve. "She Wasn't Part of Us"
Chapter Thirteen. Witch-Hunt
Chapter Fourteen. Something Happened
Saint Joan 1950-1953
Chapter Fifteen. "You're Gonna Burn With Your Husband"
Chapter Sixteen. Just One More Blow
Chapter Seventeen. "Courage, Confidence, and Perspective"
Chapter Eighteen. The Verdict and Sentence
Chapter Nineteen. Sacrifice
Chapter Twenty. The Valiant
Notes
Acknowledgments
Index

Editorial Reviews

"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."

Newsday - Florence King

"Was Ethel Rosenberg really a tragic figure?" by Benjamin Ivry

The Forward

"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

"[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

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. (May)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Drawing upon government records, interviews with psychiatrists, and secondary sources, Philipson seeks to separate Ethel Rosenberg from the myths that have grown up around her. Noting that a biographical study of Ethel Rosenberg is difficult because she left neither ``works nor a career,'' Philipson demonstrates that Ethel and Julius Rosenberg were two people ``with vastly different personalities who cannot be understood as equivalent.'' In the process, Ethel emerges as a complex figure. Though this work suffers from an occasional tendency to be speculative, and perhaps too much reliance on psychoanalysis, it is recommended for students of the Rosenberg case and Cold War America. No doubt it will stimulate some reappraisal for Rosenberg friends and foes alike. John Sillito, Weber State Coll. Lib., Ogden, Utah

Library Journal