This work presents the political and intellectual biography of a genius. As a young man, with his doctoral dissertation in Geneva, Panagis Papaligouras radically renewed the theory of International Relations and opened new paths in the Social Sciences. Through his heroic action in World War II, he demonstrated that the true intellectual is inseparably connected with the role of an uncompromising patriot and a fighter for freedom. In the postwar period, he was politically active with his teacher Panagiotis Kanellopoulos and later became a close associate of Papagos, Markezinis, and Karamanlis.

As a leading finance minister in almost all postwar governments, he designed and implemented the development of the war-torn Greek economy and prepared the country for its integration into the European Union.

This book by Meletis H. Meletopoulos, based on the unpublished archive of the Papaligouras family, numerous sources and interviews, and on declassified confidential Greek and foreign documents, is simultaneously a postwar economic and social history of Greece, as well as a detailed and remarkably revealing account of the details and behind-the-scenes of the country's accession to the Common Market.