{"product_id":"the-iron-tracks-the-life-of-gheorghe-gheorghiu-dej-9798195292409","title":"The Iron Tracks: The Life of Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej","description":"\u003cp\u003e • Author(s): Anton Axis\u003cbr\u003e • Publisher: Independently Published\u003cbr\u003e • Publisher Imprint: Independently Published\u003cbr\u003e • BISAC: Eastern Europe - General\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHe built a country from nothing.\u003cbr\u003eHe built it on bodies.\u003cbr\u003eHe never apologized for either.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Iron Tracks\u003c\/i\u003e is the confession of Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej - the railway worker from B�rlad who became the architect of communist Romania - rendered in the first person, without mercy, without mitigation, and without the comfort of hindsight's easy verdicts.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis is not a book about a monster.\u003cbr\u003eIt is more unsettling than that.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIt is a book about a man of extraordinary intelligence who looked at the dead, the broken, and the deported - and continued. Because he believed the thing he was building was worth the cost. Because he was incapable of believing otherwise.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHe is precise about the canal.\u003cbr\u003ePrecise about Pitești.\u003cbr\u003ePrecise about Maniu, the king, and the collectivization that tore a peasant civilization out of the Romanian earth.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHe counts.\u003cbr\u003eHe does not flinch from the count.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAnd somewhere between the numbers and the conviction that drove them, this book asks the question political history almost never asks: \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhat does it take - inside a man - to do what he did?\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eNot how.\u003cbr\u003eNot whether it was justified.\u003cbr\u003eWhat it takes.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eYou will not finish this book with a verdict.\u003cbr\u003eYou will finish it knowing something harder than a verdict.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Independently Published","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":47882883498135,"sku":"9798195292409","price":777.0,"currency_code":"INR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0666\/3471\/1191\/files\/9798195292409.webp?v=1781097746","url":"https:\/\/atlanticbooks.com\/products\/the-iron-tracks-the-life-of-gheorghe-gheorghiu-dej-9798195292409","provider":"Atlantic Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}