"[The author] ... gathers together photographs and stories of 50 extraordinary villages he has visited on his travels around the country"--Front jacket flap.

This 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 Ceauşescu’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. "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 through 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.”

THE STUNNING NEW BOOK FROM THE HOST OF BBC 2'S VILLAGES BY THE SEA England's villages have survived, developed, and thrived over hundreds of years. But what makes a village and how has that changed over time? Take a charming and unexpected journey through the quirks of England's villages throughout the ages in the excellent company of Dr Ben Robinson, expert archaeologist. Join him in visiting villages from prehistoric, to Roman, to medieval times, all the way through to today's modern, urban villages. Discover how landowners, governments and communities have shaped villages, why village greens, village pubs and village halls exist, and the real meaning behind names like Bunny, Yelling, Lover, Great Snoring and Slaughter. A compelling study of archaeology, history and architecture, England's Villages is a thoughtful, enlightening and informative look at our oldest homes, uncovering and revealing the extraordinary heritage of the places that surround us.

One hundred kilometers from Seville, there is a small village, Marinaleda, that for the last thirty years has been at the center of a long struggle to create a communist utopia. In a story reminiscent of the Asterix books, Dan Hancox explores the reality behind the community where no one has a mortgage, sport is played in the Che Guevara stadium and there are monthly "Red Sundays" where everyone works together to clean up the neighbourhood. In particular he tells the story of the village mayor, Sanchez Gordillo, who in 2012 became a household name in Spain after leading raids on local supermarkets to feed the Andalucian unemployed.

Life of the son of an oil magnate, based on the Teapot Dome scandal of the Harding administration