Nicolae Ceau Escu Builder Of Modern Romania And International Statesman

'A compelling and illuminating account of a great drama in the history of our times which showed once again that ordinary men and women really can change the world' Jonathan Dimbleby, MAIL ON SUNDAY For more than 40 years after the Second World War the Iron Curtain divided Europe physically, with 300 km of walls and barbed wire fences; ideologically, between communism and capitalism; psychologically, between people imprisoned under totalitarian dictatorships and their neighbours enjoying democratic freedoms; and militarily, by two mighty, distrustful power blocs, still fighting the cold war. At the start of 1989, ten European nations were still Soviet vassal states. By the end of the year, one after another, they had thrown off communism, declared national independence, and embarked on the road to democracy. One of history's most brutal empires was on its knees. Poets who had been languishing in jails became vice presidents. When the Berlin Wall fell on a chilly November night it seemed as though the open wounds of the cruel twentieth century would at last begin to heal. The Year of Revolutions appeared as a beacon of hope for oppressed people elsewhere who dared to dream that they too could free themselves. In a dizzying few months of almost entirely peaceful revolutions the people's will triumphed over tyranny. An entire way of life was swept away. Now, twenty years on, Victor Sebestyen reassesses this decisive moment in modern history.

Deletant (Romanian studies, U. of London) provides an extensive history and examination of the Securitate, Ceausescu's secret police. The first two chapters address the methods used to impose Communist rule in Romania and revolutionize Romanian society. Subsequent chapters deal with Transylvania and Ceaucescu's appeals to national sentiment, the role of Bessarabia in cultivating support, compliance and dissent, central planning, repression in the years 1978 to 1989, and the present state of affairs. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

In the historical and literary imagination, the Balkans loom large as a somewhat frightening and ill-defined space, often seen negatively as a region of small and spiteful peoples, racked by racial and ethnic hatred, always ready to burst into violent conflict. The Balkans in World History re-defines this space in positive terms, taking as a starting point the cultural, historical, and social threads that allow us to see this region as a coherent if complex whole. Eminent historian Andrew Wachtel here depicts the Balkans as that borderland geographical space in which four of the world's greatest civilizations have overlapped in a sustained and meaningful way to produce a complex, dynamic, sometimes combustible, multi-layered local civilization. It is the space in which the cultures of ancient Greece and Rome, of Byzantium, of Ottoman Turkey, and of Roman Catholic Europe met, clashed and sometimes combined. The history of the Balkans is thus a history of creative borrowing by local people of the various civilizations that have nominally conquered the region. Encompassing Bulgaria, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro, Albania, Macedonia, Greece, and European Turkey, the Balkans have absorbed many voices and traditions, resulting in one of the most complex and interesting regions on earth.

'A cracking read ... Ghislaine Maxwell's story has had endless column inches, but John gives such a great overview, and has mined so many sources that it still feels fresh and compelling.' Mail on Sunday Once upon a time there was a beautiful princess who suffered a tragedy, the death of her father, a war hero, a philanthropist, a good man, in suspicious circumstances. She fled to New York where she made a new life with a brilliant mathematician. Her name is Ghislaine Maxwell and her lover was Jeffrey Epstein. Through Jeffrey, and her family name, Ghislaine became friends with some of the most powerful people on earth, ex-President Bill Clinton and President-to-be Donald Trump and the second son of the Queen of England, Prince Andrew, the Duke of York. But this is no fairy tale. HUNTING GHISLAINE sets out the other side of the story, and it's one of the darkest you will ever read. Ghislaine's father, Robert Maxwell, was a sadist, a war criminal, a monster. His cruelty deformed Ghislaine Maxwell long before she met Jeffrey Epstein. Her one-time lover was convicted for being a paedophile. So Ghislaine's life has been spent serving not one monster but two. In HUNTING GHISLAINE, legendary investigative journalist John Sweeney uncovers the truth behind this fairy tale story in reverse.

Considers the history of state-sanctioned homicide from the 17th century BCE to the present. Most of the entries are people who were executed or had some impact on the debate or practice. Other topics include breaking on the wheel, court cases, the electric chair, the Molly Maquires, the Nuremberg war crimes defendants, purge trials, race, and theories of retribution and deterrence. Includes a general and entry-specific bibliographies, and a chronology. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR