Ethel was the first and only American female executed for espionage. Brought under suspicion because of her husband’s activities, it’s been long speculated whether Ethel was truly as guilty as presumed. I’m of the mind that Ethel was thrown to the wolves by her family and state. She had a horrible upbringing and her family probably sold her out. This was a very well researched and documented acct. of Ethel and Julian. I’ve read some say the story was too lengthy or drug on with too many details. I find that to not be the case, I wanted to know more. I really appreciated this book. I learned so much and enjoyed the process. Thank you NetGalley and St. Martin for allowing me to read a book I probably would have just walked by.

I didn't know much about Ethel Rosenberg before and I do not feel like I have any great insight into her now. The book felt tedious. She had a difficult life with a mother who did not love her and then a younger brother she doted on lied during her trial. Just before his death he wasn't remorseful about what he did and that he would do it again to protect his wife. The biggest tragedy was leaving behind two young boys.

I am in awe of the amount of research that goes into a book like this. I would like to thank Netgalley and St. Martin's Press for providing me a copy of this book.

Very well researched and written book. I knew nothing of this couple or the events surrounding them prior to reading this book. I brought up the subject to my father (an avid reader and Lover of all things politics at 87) who remembered this well from his youth. We had a great discussion - about the events, his thoughts and the conclusions presented in the book. He agreed with most of the book - but remembered things differently than some.
I love when books start a conversation!

In her new biography, Anne Sebba makes a convincing case that Ethel Rosenberg — put to death for being a Russian spy in 1953 — was innocent of the charges leveled against her by the U.S. government. Sebba sets out to prove that Ethel was little more than a dowdy, albeit politically aware, New York City housewife and mother.

Ethel’s tragic flaw, in Sebba’s view? Harboring an outspoken, cloud-cuckoo-land vision of Soviet national promise. And when it comes down to the crunch, Ethel simply stands by her man — although husband Julius was himself almost certainly a recruiter of American spies for Moscow.

So, Ethel stoically follows Julius to the electric chair amid a jittery squall of Cold War dread. There’s nothing in the formal record to convict her beyond runaway national paranoia, breathless speculation, and the likely perjury of her brother, a confessed co-conspirator brought to justice, though non-lethally, for the same offense as the Rosenbergs.

Ethel Rosenberg: An American Tragedy focuses tightly on Ethel’s life and death, filling out a haunting portrait of a first-generation Jewish American born into squalid poverty on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. We trail her from infancy to a drably conventional marriage and on through to her electrocution. Along the way, thanks to Sebba’s marvelously gripping narration, we encounter a raft of pivotal individuals — familial and jurisprudential, obscure and politically prominent — arrayed to save Ethel or, on the opposing side, determined to hasten her demise.

Her co-conspirator brother, David Greenglass, is a shocking exemplar of the latter type. A singularly unremarkable fellow, he dodges the chair by peddling an accusation against Ethel that saves his own wife from indictment. And there’s Ethel’s immigrant mother, Tessie. Illiterate and marginally conversant in English, she seems numb in the face of her daughter’s gathering fate, not to mention insensate to the grim future of her two Rosenberg grandsons. Tessie invests all her support in son David and his family, urging her daughter to wise up and finger Julius, saving herself. In the days after Ethel’s execution, Tessie calls the FBI to underscore that her daughter was a “soldier of Stalin.”

The broader national mood attaching to the Rosenberg case, Sebba reminds us, is fraught with high-pitched outrage and patriotic sloganeering. Red Scare frenzy, after all, stems from the nation’s shared dread of a fiery Soviet blitz descending through cloudless skies and wailing sirens.

In this context, consider the judge in the case, Irving Kaufman, addressing both Rosenbergs from the bench before delivering their death sentence. If His Honor wanders a bit outside the strict judicial scope of the charges before him, it’s in keeping with the national zeitgeist:

“I consider your crime worse than murder…putting into the hands of the Russians the A-bomb years before our best scientists predicted Russia would perfect the bomb has already caused, in my opinion, the Communist aggression in Korea.”

Two presidents, and even former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt — a hyper-liberal and highly influential voice in the 1950s — take a pass on calling for judicial mercy for Ethel despite the borrowed cachet Ethel accrues as an American mom. Even J. Edgar Hoover, that relentless anti-commie crusader, worries about the optics of executing a mother of two but eventually sides with the consensus of the empowered.

The Rosenbergs’ father-and-son defense team often seems unequal to the task of defending the couple, overmatched in court and a bit complacent about both conviction and sentence. Facing off against them is a skilled prosecution team. Among its junior members: Roy Cohn, making his bones as a Red hunter and soon to trade up to a role as staff counsel in Senator Joe McCarthy’s infamous witch hunt.

Ethel Rosenberg is richly illustrated, adding to the authenticity and vigor of Sebba’s densely peopled narrative. The endnotes and deep bibliography are equally essential to our full understanding of Ethel’s path to the electric chair and the national circumstances that made it possible, however outrageous the saga may seem in 2021.

The case of Ethel Rosenberg and its attendant context — cultural, political, borderline imaginary — have much to teach us today, when balanced and objective truth seems to repel so many Americans.

This is not just history, but a cautionary tale.

I really try to read some histrical non-fiction to educate myself. The Rosenbergs were tried and convicted of being spies and that was the extent of my knowledge. I thought it was well researched, offered views from all sides. Felt longer than it was, but that's usually the case for me with history books.

The picture of Ethel painted, particularly in the beginning, is one of the accounts to have her stand as her own person, and to undo the narrative set for her during her trial. This is absolutely a heartbreaking story and truly an ugly chapter (of many ugly chapters) of American history. Well researched but could have been a bit more engaging.

The executions were carried out before I was born and didn’t initially recall much about this event from history books. I enjoy history but was disappointed that it seemed slow and tedious for me and I felt like I was reading a report.

I understand that Ethel’s husband, Julius couldn’t state that Ethel was innocent without being considered guilty himself. I found it difficult that for someone so devoted to his wife, would let her be executed and leave their children behind. As for Ethel, I’m all for loyalty to your spouse but how could she possibly believe leaving the boys behind was the right thing to do? Especially if she was innocent on the charges. It seems that most people turn on others to save themselves.

I disliked her mother and how she openly favored her son when her daughter was so bright and talented. And for she and David to lie about Ethel was just so reprehensible.

I’ve read a couple other books in the ‘McCarthy era’ and that was an extremely scary time for so many people and difficult to believe that could happen in our country – the home of the free! Of course, ‘free’ during many times in history wasn’t so free for everyone.

This is a well-researched book and Ethel’s conviction and execution such a tragedy.

Thanks to the author, publisher and Netgalley for the opportunity to read this book.

[3.5] stars.

A very thoroughly researched account of the life and plight of Ethel Rosenberg. Although I appreciated the detail in which the author went to recount this interesting piece of American history, the narrative was bogged down in the amount of details presented. Still, I was able to learn a lot about something I had no prior knowledge.

Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, a notorious couple that were electrocuted in June 1953. The author, Anne Sebba, focuses on Ethel and posits that she was murdered by the state and likely innocent, and did not deserve death. Ethel was betrayed, by her family and the state. Once could say she was a victim from the beginning, being raised by a mother, Tessie, that never showed her love, and instead poured her emotions to Ethel’s younger brother David. The same David who names her and Julius in order to reduce his own sentence of the same crime of giving secrets away to Russia.

Ethel was a smart woman, trapped in the 1940’s image of what a woman was allowed to do, not much beyond being a wife and mother. Ethel was determined to be a better mother to her two children and believed in new parenting methods.

Why she didn’t speak, other than pleading the fifth, is a question probed in this book. Some answers are given, but it’s unknown fully of her motives, leaving the question open if she was guilty or not, or at least knowing about her husband’s activities.

A fascinating book into the WWII era and the beginning of the Cold War. Of a family thrown into the headlines and forever embedded as part of the American culture from the anti-communist sentiment and Cold War. I particularly enjoyed the ending, the “Many ways of imagining and seeing Ethel”, with books, plays and a recreation of the trial, which remain part of Ethel’s legacy around the world.

I listed to most of the book as an audio narrated by Orlagh Cassidy. The narration is done well and keeps you in the book. Couldn’t ask for a better narration for this story.

Thanks to Netgalley for an ARC: Rounded up from 3.5 This book is well researched and in light of new information, it's clear that Julius was guilty and Ethel was complicit. But her brother, her closest family member, lied on the stand In my opinion, her punishment was unduly harsh. She was self aware and her stoicism masked a much more nuanced woman, but her external demeanor caused her to be denied clemency--as it conflicted with the ideals of female behavior of that time. She chose her husband over her children. Ethel was complex and this book adds to the literature on the subject. It was a bit dry, especially at the beginning, but a worthy addition to the literature on the subject. (

Ethel Rosenberg: An American Tragedy by Anna Sebba is an in-depth examination of the betrayal and execution of an American housewife for conspiracy to spy for the Soviet Union.

The audacious design of this book is to accomplish what could not be done in life, to separate Ethel Rosenberg from her husband Julius so that her life and potential guilt could be examined in their own right. While Julius Rosenberg was undoubtedly a Soviet asset, the case against Ethel has always been less explicit – and some see her death as being the consequence of Cold War paranoia and an unfailing loyalty to her husband. Sebba does a remarkable job of portraying Ethel as more than an appendage of her husband, bringing to life her personality, convictions, and desires for her own life and that of her family.

This reviewer had further been unaware of the role Ethel’s family played in her arrest and execution, with her brother and sister-in-law - who were engaged in spying for Julius - implicating her in order to save themselves. The author further highlights those elements of American culture from the Great Depression through the early Cold War which influenced the complicated, seesaw attitudes toward Communism and how Ethel’s status as a Jewish mother influenced public perception in relation to both guilt and the desire for clemency.

This was a fascinating deep-dive into one of the seminal events of Cold War history, which managed to personalize a key actor in a way which had not been adequately done before. However, even with this, Ethel comes off as a somewhat remote character who was leveraged and killed unfairly to put pressure on her husband to give names, but who very likely knew and approved of his espionage on behalf of the Soviets.

Although I didn't realize it at the time, what I learned about Rosenbergs in high school, during the height of the Cold War, was tinged with every -ism rampant at that time. Racism, classism, sexism, anti-Semitism. Throw in a little anti-immigrant sentiment and a whole lot of paranoia about Communism. So I was very interested in learning more about Ethel Rosenberg.

This well-researched, comprehensive look at Ethel Rosenberg's life, focusing on the events she was best known for, reveals Ethel Rosenberg to be nothing more than an intelligent, caring, ambitious, and loyal woman who was more devoted to her husband and family than they were to her. The betrayals by her mother, brother, and sister-in-law are all unspeakable, while the hysteria of the Red Scare still seems absurd more than half a century later (even as the fear-mongering, not the reality of any threat of socialism, is still relevant today.

Anne Sebba has crafted a very readable, approachable account of Ethel Rosenberg's life and the time in which she lived. #EthelRosenberg #NetGalley

I thoroughly enjoyed this book, in spite of the fact that I was angry and frustrated by the historical details of the case and the investigation. Anne Sebba shares more documented details about the Rosenberg family, and in a very well organized way, than I would have thought could have existed. Why is real justice so hard to attain in this country? This sad story is simply fascinating. I think the most engaging part for me was the life journey of the children afterwards. Now I want more.

I received a copy from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Felt like a need for a bit of nonfiction. Post-WWII America in the era of McCarthyism is not an era I often venture into and I didn't really know much about the Rosenbergs except that they were tried and convicted of being spies.
Well-researched, easy to read but I still have lots of unanswered questions about this time period. I appreciated that the author tried to show all sides. It definitely was a crazy period of history. So I shall look out for other titles.









Goodreads review published 13/06/21
Publication Date 08/06/21

I remember briefly learning about Ethel Rosenberg in high school history class. But I don't remember there being much context given to her execution. I had also heard of her as one of the characters in Tony Kushner's amazing play, "Angels in America." But again I didn't know much about the actual person and what she'd been through or about her true part in America's history with fighting communism and the fear of the Cold War.

Sebba did an incredible amount of research into the life and death of Ethel. Her research included interviews with the surviving people who knew Ethel the best. The story is shocking and tragic, and Ethel has gone down in history as the only woman ever executed in the US for a crime other than murder (conspiracy to commit espionage in this case). Sebba does a wonderful job bringing Ethel to life (as a union organizer and in her roles as a mother, wife, and daughter). This serves her subject well as the reader is reminded that Ethel was so much more than her accused crime. In fact, she likely wasn't even guilty at all. There are many heartbreaking details in this book, but they're crucial to understanding what an unfair tragedy the whole thing was.

My only complaint is that there were a few sections that seemed to drag a little bit. Sometimes Ethel's spirit got diminished in the minutiae of her short life. However, I thought in general the book was captivating and left me thinking a great deal of the time - which is truly the sign of a good book.

As a young woman, Ethel Rosenberg wanted to bean opera singer. She got married and had two boys. Even. Though he was. Judged guilty, there was not as much said about her compared to her husband. Thr Rosenbergs we’re judged guilty of conspiracy to commit espionage for Russia. This took place during the Cold War with the political paranoia of the McCarthy era. The United States government at that time knew that their evidence was shaky and based on her brother’s lies. She was loyal to her husband and refuse to say that he as the guilty one. Sadly they were kept in separate cells before they both were executed in June 1953..

This is the first time her story has been told. It has been told through her correspondence with her husband, lawyer and psychotherapist. This is what happens to its citizen’s rights when the government is afraid of it citizens. Her husband was executed first and then her. It is a thorough account with relevance to today and that is scary. I found this a fascinating part of history that happened in the United States.

The first time I ever heard of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg was in the movie "You've Got Mail" when two characters have a dialogue about an article the one characters wrote about them. I had never even heard those names before. I remember looking them up and really all I could find was that they were spies and that they were both executed for that. Fast forward to a few months ago and this book came up on NetGalley and I knew I needed to read this and I am so glad I did. This was a huge history lesson that everyone should be reading.

What a crazy story [thoroughly researched by the author and written in a even tone, even in the face of Ethel being executed] and heartbreaking story. . I cannot believe what Julius and Ethel went through at the hands of the US government [talk about a farce of a trial; and I cannot even imagine being thrown under the bus by a sibling like Ethel was by her brother] and then to wait out the months leading to their death alone, in prison, knowing they were going to die and still proclaiming their innocence right up to the end, with Ethel thinking only of her husband and her two little boys, who she missed so much every day she was apart from them. That these two boys lost both parents with little regard to their own well-being [Ethel was never anything but a good mother, who lived for her children and her husband {this was shown over and over again, as she gave up a good job to support her husband in a move that his job required, and the help she continually sought out for Michael, who had issues as a child} ] is nothing short of horrific. It isn't until much later that the well-being of the boys is actually taken care of and it is because of their adoptive parents love and caring [AND the love that Ethel and Julius showered on them when they were small], that enables these two boys to grow up to be really amazing adults. It is, in my opinion, the only blessing and good thing that came out of this horrible disaster. My heart hurts for them and all they lost - it is heartbreaking.

Do I believe that Ethel was a spy? No I do not. Do I believe she is guilty of supporting her husband in any way she could? Yes I do. And she died for that.

"Few would deny that David and Ruth betrayed Ethel when they lied about the typewriter. Many would also argue that Julius and David betrayed their county when they spied for the Soviet Union. Tessie betrayed Ethel by failing to love or cherish her only daughter. Saypol, Cohn, and Judge Kaufman betrayed the high ideals of American justice. Truman and Eisenhower betrayed their better selves by refusing to grant Ethel clemency. Only Ethel betrayed no one, thus sealing her own fate." <--THIS sums up this whole book better than I could ever do. Well done.

**I was also granted an audiobook of this, read by the amazing Orlagh Cassidy. She does an amazing job and really added to the story as a whole. SO glad I was able to listen to this book.**

Thank you to NetGalley, Anne Sebba, and St. Martin's Press for providing this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This is a biography of communist spy Ethel Rosenberg, which from the blurbs sounded like an exciting read to me, but unfortunately fell a little flat of my expectations. Although I appreciate the thorough and in-depth research, it was often too much and quite overwhelming. I felt like I was reading a dull high school history text and I struggled to finish it. I was surprised that the author’s opinion that Mrs. Rosenberg was innocent was so clearly shown during the entirety of the novel. I would have rather been given the information and come to my own conclusions.

I received a complimentary digital and audio copy of this book from the publisher and NetGalley. This review is my voluntary and unbiased opinion.

From the beginning it seems the author wants to sway readers opinion of Ethel’s innocence. Personally, I think her opinion would have best been presented at the end to let the reader develop her own opinion.

It’s Depression Era in New York where families are living in difficult times. This was true for many Jewish immigrants who experienced poverty. Communism was a common philosophy at the time being challenged by the government. The Greenglass family works hard to make ends meet being immigrants from Russia. Ethel sought the approval of her cold, critical mother, Tessie. Being a good student she graduated at 15 years old but need to find work to help support the family. She had loved the theatre and music and often felt drawn to teaching herself sight reading which eventually led to her performing at Carnegie Hall. Because college or other formal training weren’t possible, she took up transcription classes to find work and help make money to support the family. At that time, she became politically involved in causes to support her communist philosophy.

During this time in history, it was not uncommon to encounter communists in America. Much of the philosophy Ethel seemed focused on pertained to equal rights for workers in developing a union for the small shipping company for which she worked. It was at one of Ethel’s performance that she met Julius Rosenberg who was 21 years old. He was the son of Harry and Sophie Rosenberg who immigrated from Poland. Julius was able to study at CCNY where he learned electrical engineering but was very politically involved.

This story provides the historical data and research regarding the fall out regarding communism and espionage. While Ethel was involved with communist causes in her youth, she abandoned much involvement after she had children. She devoted much of her time and energy on becoming a successful parent. She read and researched extensively on parenting and child psychology. How much or what she knew about her husband’s activities is unknown and more importantly unproven.

It seemed more likely that she was included and executed on circumstantial (that’s a stretch) information. It seems her brother David and his wife Ruth were very involved and when questioned implicated Julius and Ethel to save themselves. Ethel was a strong willed woman who refused to show fear or be disloyal to her husband. In the end, with all appeals exhausted she was put to death. The government was very selective and decisive regarding the execution and who should be killed first. They realized they didn’t have evidence that Ethel was involved just “suspicions.” They wanted to make an example of what could happen if people were found guilty of espionage. They hoped that she would “turn” on her husband but that never happened and the government felt obligated to follow through with the conviction.

After reading the facts of the case, it is clear there was no physical evidence to support the claim that Ethel committed espionage while also taking her children. Ultimately, I think coming to that conclusion in the end would be a better read than feeling that the author was trying to persuade the readers opinion. I enjoy reading author’s opinions and research on cases but usually at the end of a story not the beginning.
Overall, a worthy historical read.

I have always been interested in the trial and execution of the Rosenberg's for spying but there were so many things about Ethel that were unanswered, until now. It was like the perfect storm - the Red scare of the 1950's, Communism, antisemitism, politics, the role of women and much more. With access to newly released documents the author sheds new light on the tragedy of Ethel Rosenberg. The facts are laid out and the conclusions remain with the reader. Learning more about the actions of J. Edgar Hoover and Roy Cohen was an eye opener. Getting to know more about who Ethel Rosenberg was made for an enlightening read. I pray that we have learned from history and it never repeats itself.
My thanks to the publisher St.Martin's Press and to NetGalley for giving me an advance copy in exchange for my honest review.