The Life and Evil Times of Nicolae Ceausescu

Nicolae Ceausescu was the most ruthless dictator of recent European history. He stood at the pinnacle of a fear machine which knocked down hospitals overnight, beat up ambassadors, razed people's homes to the ground, locked dying children into asylums and scarred the wombs of a generation of women. When the people's revenge came, on Christmas Day 1989, it was merciless and absolute. "Observer" journalist John Sweeney witnessed the Romanian revolution at first hand, and was both horrified and moved by what he discovered. Drawing on the personal testimony of Ceausescu's sons, maids, doctors, ministers, food tasters and surviving victims, he tells a tale of egotism run mad that is by turns tragic, grotesque and funny.