{"product_id":"9789639776784","title":"A Tale of Two Villages","description":"\u003cp\u003eThis dramatic story of land and power from twentieth-century Eastern Europe is set in two extraordinary villages: a rebel village, where peasants fought the advent of Communism and became its first martyrs, and a model village turned forcibly into a town, Dictator Ceausescu's birthplace. The two villages capture among themselves nearly a century of dramatic transformation and social engineering, ending up with their charged heritage in the present European Union.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"One of Romania's foremost social critics, Alina Mungiu-Pippidi offers a valuable look at several decades of policy that marginalized that country's rural population, from the 1918 land reform to the post-1989 property restitution. Illustrating her arguments with a close comparison of two contrasting villages, she describes the actions of a long series of \"predatory elites,\" from feudal landowners through the Communist Party to post-communist leaders, all of whom maintained the rural population's dependency. A forceful concluding chapter shows that its prospects for improvement are scarcely better within the EU. Romania's villagers have an eminent and spirited advocate in the author.\"\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Central European University Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47064401576176,"sku":"9789639776784","price":45.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9789639776784_p0.jpg?v=1763685517","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9789639776784","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}