Widely regarded as the greatest Romanian novel of the twentieth century, Mateiu Caragiale’s Rakes of the Old Court (Craii de Curtea-Veche) follows four characters through the bars and brothels of Bucharest. Guided by an amoral opportunist, the shadowy narrator and his two affluent friends drink and gamble their way through a city built on the ruins of crumbled castles and bygone empires. The novel’s shimmering, spectacular prose describes gripping vignettes of love, ambition, and decay. Originally published in 1929, Rakes of the Old Court is considered a jewel of Romanian modernism. Devoted “Mateists” have long read, memorized, and reenacted the novel, and after the Romanian Revolution, it became part of the high school curriculum. Now canonical, Mateiu’s work has been celebrated for its opulent literary style and enigmatic tone.

The primary founder and guiding spirit of the Harvard Law School and the most prolific publicist of the nineteenth century, Story served as a member of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1811 to 1845. His attitudes and goals as lawyer, politician, judge, and leg

The Romanian writer Mateiu I. Caragiale (great playwright Ion Luca Caragiale's son), lived between 1885-1936. His main literary works are the short story "Remember" (1921) and the novel "Gallants of the Old Court" (1929, Romanian Writers Society's Award). He shines through the originality and distinction of his masterly controlled style. Written in the first person, "The Gallants of the Old Court (Craii de Curtea-Veche)" reveals the traits of, and satirizes, Romanian society in the early 20th century. Three self-indulgent, decadent characters while away their time, drinking, playing cards, chasing women. They also make allowance for the company of Gore Pirgu, an uncultured self-seeker of very low extraction, whose abominable character mirrors the new political class of the time. In this novel, the dying world of medieval boyars meets a rising fiercely capitalistic world, with new rules and ruthless behavior. Respected Romanian literary critic George Calinescu wrote: "Reality is transfigured, it becomes fantastical and a sort of Edgar Poe-like unease stirs these worthless figures of the old Romanian capital." "Gallants of the Old Court" opens a fascinating universe in front of us, as well as explains usually untapped regions of the human soul, helping us to better understand not only most of the Byzantine, Balkan, and Romanian spirit, but also a large size of our own unexplored self. The translator has done a painstakingly perfectionist work in rendering the text into English in the best possible way and also explaining every detail that might help us understand the spirit and the letter of the original, even without any hint of knowledge of Romanian. "Gallants of the Old Court" is a great read and one of the masterpieces of world literature; and this translation is surely the best so far.

The former Supreme Court justice shares stories about the history and evolution of the Supreme Court that traces the roles of key contributors while sharing the events behind important transformations.

Sarah J. Maas hit the New York Times SERIES list at #1 with A Court of Wings and Ruin!

Neil Josten is the newest addition to the Palmetto State University Exy team. He's short, he's fast, he's got a ton of potential - and he's the runaway son of the murderous crime lord known as The Butcher.Signing a contract with the PSU Foxes is the last thing a guy like Neil should do. The team is high profile and he doesn't need sports crews broadcasting pictures of his face around the nation. His lies will hold up only so long under this kind of scrutiny and the truth will get him killed.But Neil's not the only one with secrets on the team. One of Neil's new teammates is a friend from his old life, and Neil can't walk away from him a second time. Neil has survived the last eight years by running. Maybe he's finally found someone and something worth fighting for.

This prize-winning study of post-WWII Romania examines the fraught relationship between national heritage and Socialist statecraft. In Socialist Heritage, ethnographer and historian Emanuela Grama explores the socialist state’s attempt to create its own heritage, as well as the ongoing legacy of that project. While many argue that the socialist regimes of Central and Eastern Europe aimed to erase the pre-war history of the socialist cities, Grama shows that the communist state in Romania sought to exploit the past for its own benefit. The book traces the transformation of Bucharest’s Old Town district from the early twentieth century into the twenty-first. Under socialism, politicians and professionals used the district’s historic buildings—especially the ruins of a medieval palace—to emphasize the city’s Romanian past and erase its ethnically diverse history. Since the collapse of socialism, the cultural and economic value of the Old Town has become highly contested. Its poor residents decry their semi-decrepit homes, while entrepreneurs see it as a source of easy money. Such arguments point to recent negotiations about the meanings of class, political participation, and ethnic and economic belonging in today’s Romania. Grama’s rich historical and ethnographic research reveals the fundamentally dual nature of heritage: every search for an idealized past relies on strategies of differentiation that can lead to further marginalization and exclusion. Winner of the 2020 Ed A. Hewitt Book Prize