Vladimir Tismaneanu is professor of politics at the University of Maryland, College Park and the author of numerous books and articles on the revolutions of 1989, the history of world communism, and political ideologies. In 2006, he chaired the Presidential Commission for the Analysis of the Communist Dictatorship in Romania. Between 1998 and 2004, he was the editor of the journal East European Politics and Societies. Marius Stan holds a Ph.D. in political science from the University of Bucharest, served as the editor of the international journal History of Communism in Europe, and headed a department at the Institute for the Investigation of Communist Crimes and the Memory of the Romanian Exile. He is the author of books published in Romania and Poland, and of numerous articles in international scholarly journals. His research and teaching interests include twentieth-century European communism and fascism, revolutionary political ideologies and movements, nationalism, transitional justice, and the main intellectual debates during the Cold War.