Constantin C. Giurescu, who rose to prominence between the two World Wars, was Romania s leading historian and author of the seminal The History of the Romanian People. His granddaughter s fascinating and inspirational story of this remarkable man and his family follows their struggles in war-torn Romania from 1900 to the fall of the Soviet Union. An enlightened society is dismantled with the 1946 Communist takeover of Romania, and Constantin is confined to the notorious Sighet Penitentiary. Drawing on her grandfather s prison diary (which was put in a glass jar, bur ied in a yard, then smuggled out of the country by Dr. Paul E. Michelson who does the FOREWORD for this book), private letters and her own research, she writes of the legacy from the turn of the twentieth century to the fall of Communism. We see the rise of modern Romania, the misery of World War I, the blossoming of its culture between the wars, and then the sellout of Eastern Europe to Russia after World War II and its effect socially, culturally, and upon lives. In this sweeping account, we see not only the toll but the triumph in its wake: people who reclaim better lives for themselves, and in the process, teach us a lesson in endurance, patience, and will not only to survive, but to thrive.