Following the Communist takeover of Romania in 1945, Dr. Stanciu Stroia refused to join the party, suffering professional humiliation and political persecution. He was arrested in 1951 and sentenced to seven years in prison; his estate was nationalized, his family exiled, and his practice confiscated. Ill with scurvy, he survived the prison ordeal and wrote his memoir, despite the risk of being detained again.

This is the first general single-volume history in English of Romania under Gheorghiu-Dej, its first Communist ruler and predecessor of Nicolae Ceausescu. Based extensively on Securitate and Party documents inaccessible under the Communist regime and consulted since 1990 by only a handful of scholars, the book focuses on the use of terror by the Communists and the attempt to transform Romanian society totally through Communist rule.

Victim of Stalinist-era terror, Lena Constante was arrested on trumped-up charges of "espionage" and sentenced to twelve years in Romanian prisons. The Silent Escape is the extraordinary account of the first eight years of her incarceration—years of solitary confinement during which she was tortured, starved, and daily humiliated.