New York Times bestselling author Anne Sebba's moving biography of Ethel Rosenberg, the wife and mother whose execution for espionage-related crimes defined the Cold War and horrified the world.

In June 1953, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, a couple with two young sons, were led separately from their prison cells on Death Row and electrocuted moments apart. Both had been convicted of conspiracy to commit espionage for the Soviet Union, despite the fact that the US government was aware that the evidence against Ethel was shaky at best and based on the perjury of her own brother.

This book is the first to focus on one half of that couple in more than thirty years, and much new evidence has surfaced since then. Ethel was a bright girl who might have fulfilled her personal dream of becoming an opera singer, but instead found herself struggling with the social mores of the 1950's. She longed to be a good wife and perfect mother, while battling the political paranoia of the McCarthy era, anti-Semitism, misogyny, and a mother who never valued her. Because of her profound love for and loyalty to her husband, she refused to incriminate him, despite government pressure on her to do so. Instead, she courageously faced the death penalty for a crime she hadn't committed, orphaning her children.

Seventy years after her trial, this is the first time Ethel's story has been told with the full use of the dramatic and tragic prison letters she exchanged with her husband, her lawyer and her psychotherapist over a three-year period, two of them in solitary confinement. Hers is the resonant story of what happens when a government motivated by fear tramples on the rights of its citizens.

• We started tracking this book on September 20, 2020.
• This book was $14.99 when we started tracking it.
• The price of this book has changed 9 times in the past 1,833 days.
• The current price of this book is $11.82 last checked 3 hours ago.
• This book is at its lowest price in the past six months.
• This lowest price this book has been offered at in the past year is $2.99.
• The lowest price to date was $2.99 last reached on December 18, 2022.
• This book has been $2.99 2 times since we started tracking it.
• The highest price to date was $14.99 last reached on April 6, 2022.
• This book has been $14.99 2 times since we started tracking it.

• HistoryAmericasUnited States20th Century
• FranceIntelligence & Espionage
• Biographies & MemoirsTrue CrimeCriminals
• HistoryAmericas
• HistoryUnited States20th Century

• Publication Date: September 23, 2025
• Text-to-Speech: Disabled
• Lending: Disabled
• Print Length: 312 Pages
• File Size: 248 KB