Ceausescu and His Time: The Rise and Fall

This book takes readers through Western chancelleries and the palaces of kings and queens that welcomed Ceaușescu, but also through the unheated apartments of gray urban blocks. It presents both the praises sung to the "master navigator" and the jokes created at his expense, shedding light on daring infrastructure projects as well as the absurd "rational nutrition" plan.

Paying close attention to propaganda rhetoric and on-the-ground realities, while weighing the achievements and failures of Romania’s last communist leader, the author delves into a wide range of topics, including domestic and foreign policy, economics, society, and culture.

Praise for the Book

"The author's message is simple and precise, worthy of being understood in its full scope: the quarter-century of history under Ceaușescu’s dictatorship is a fragment of the life of Romanians that—beyond and before idealizations, blame, and labeling—deserves to be known 'as it was' (to borrow Leopold von Ranke's phrase). Mrs. Lavinia Betea fulfills this act of understanding with the rigor of a historian and the insight of a cultural scholar, with the meticulousness of a scientist and a human warmth that transcends the theme and delivers timeless messages directed at both the minds and hearts of readers."

— Ioan-Aurel Pop, Academic