Governance requires excellent physical and mental condition, as any weakness is considered a crisis of power. There is nothing more difficult than being the doctor of a person who believes they are immortal.

Hitler, Churchill, Pétain, Mussolini, Franco, Kennedy, Stalin, and Mao each hold a unique place in the history of the 20th century. With the same obsession for monitoring their health, they all experienced the impact of the role they played in their physical and mental constitution.

Over time, their doctors became the necessary crutches for the continuous execution of their duties, at the risk of exercising a disturbing power over them or even becoming their worst enemies.

Based on the memoirs of the leaders' doctors, as well as reliable historical sources, along with a wealth of historical anecdotes and daily events, Tania Crasnianski writes an engaging study in a vivid style and well-crafted language that reveals a well-hidden underworld of influence and power, alongside unknown aspects of the lives of the leaders who marked the 20th century.

The doctor who stands daily beside the politician, although lacking power, is complicit in it. Like his patient, he is also isolated and omnipotent.

Deluded by chimeras of grandeur, did these prominent doctors succumb to the temptation of power? Morell, Hitler's doctor, dreamed of becoming a magnate in the pharmaceutical industry; Lord Moran, Churchill's doctor, a famous writer; Menetrel, Pétain's doctor, a man of influence; Jacobson, Kennedy's doctor, a brilliant chemist; Chacharia, Mussolini's doctor, a distinguished professor; Hill, Franco's doctor, the trusted political advisor to the Caudillo.

Vinogradov and Li, respectively Stalin's and Mao's doctors, believed they were no longer ordinary physicians. Custodians of the state secret concerning the health of their patient, these doctors often found themselves torn between their professional duty and their responsibility as citizens.