Framing History: The Rosenberg Story and the Cold War: 6 (American Culture) - Softcover

Carmichael, Virginia

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0816620423 ISBN 13: 9780816620425

Publisher: University of Minnesota Press, 1993

Synopsis

In 1953 Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were convicted of conspiracy to commit espionage and were subsequently executed for treason. Virginia Carmichael here uses their story to consider the function of narrative in the formation of history. Carmichael argues that the Rosenberg story constituted a social drama (as yet unresolved) that inaugurated the elaboration of many stories serving multiple interests and functions. The story itself was an embedded narrative in the developing Cold War, both required by that Cold War frame narrative and at the same time furthering its construction.

About this title

From the Back Cover

In this book Virginia Carmichael offers a provocative new interpretation of the Rosenberg story. Carmichael argues that this social drama produced many stories serving multiple interests and functions, many of which confront the politics of both writing and reading. She also demonstrates that this story's resistance to closure-manifest in its repeated tellings in historiography, biography, literature, and the visual and performing arts-suggests its lasting cultural impact on a nation coming to terms with the end of the cold war era.

Edition details

• Publisher: University of Minnesota Press
• Publication date: 1993
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0816620423
• ISBN 13: 9780816620425
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 328