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Photo: Pleiades bookshop

"After it finished, a period of rapid economic development was set off, described as the 'Greek economic miracle'. At that time, Greece ranked second in these terms after Japan," said Stathis Kalyvas.

We are already in the fifth round, which is marked, among other things, by the military junta (1967-1974), the events of the Athens Polytechnic and the restoration of democratic order in the country. Tatsopoulos made an interesting remark that during the seven-year dictatorship of the colonels, society's resistance against it was insignificant.  "By the end of it, we had heard the names of a few individuals, e.g. Alekos Panagoulis. Then suddenly the 'fighters' swarmed up, and it was strange how the junta had not collapsed earlier as a result of their actions." He added that the entire Eastern bloc showed great tolerance, if not support, for the perpetrators of the military coup and their 7-year rule.

For Kalyvas, the military dictatorship is the time when Greek populism in its current shape emerged. "The fact that the coup was carried out by colonels who prevailed over the generals, creates a feeling of an institutional weakness," he said.

Both writers shared the opinion that the junta was a consequence of the inability of the political forces in Greece to democratize the country.

After its demise, the country began to recover, and in 1981 became a member of the European Economic Community. Obviously not because it met all economic conditions, but by dint of a political decision.

Greek society had meanwhile become quite different. A middle-class had emerged, people were living mostly in the cities, the younger ones had become open to modern-day achievements. But populism was growing no less, and it prevailed after PASOK won the 1981 elections. Greece received enormous aid and subsidies from the EEC, but failed to use them appropriately. According to Kalyvas, "the only period, during which the indiscriminate spending was limited, was after 1997 until Greece's accession to the Eurozone: it is associated precisely with the run-up to the accession."

Greece's participation in the common European currency is an opportunity for change and reform. However, the government of Costas Simitis failed in its attempt to reform the pension system, and the government of Kostas Karamanlis did not take advantage of lower interest rates on lending to channel funds into bringing the economy up to scratch. A large influx of economic migrants, mainly from the neighbouring countries, took place, but the country missed a unique opportunity to renew itself, despite its atrocious demographics.

This is how it got bogged down in the economic crisis, and Stathis Kalyvas scrutinises the reasons for it in the sixth round. Apart from the economic aspect of the problem – the bloated public sector, the reluctance to carry out reforms – he cites nationalism as another underlying reason for the crisis. "European integration is a threat to nation states. Therefore, for the opponents of the bailout memorandum, the imposition of European policies constitutes a violation of state sovereignty."

In the seventh round, Kalyvas describes what Greece's future could be after the crisis. In conclusion, the author argues that "in the end of the day, Greece hasn't done so badly." He cites a quote from Donna Tartt's Goldfinch, which reads: "Maybe sometimes you do everything wrong and at the end everything turns out the right way?" The quote features as the motto of the book. At the premiere, Kalyvas argued: "Greece has enormous economic opportunities, which should be released if it is to find its way out of the crisis. This is possible, but has not happened so far for political reasons." Kalyvas listed the necessary prerequisites for this: political stability, solid governance, which will carry out the necessary reforms and will unleash production forces and also generate a feeling among the public that things will gradually improve.

Unlike Kalyvas, Petros Tatsopoulos said he was pessimistic about the happy turnout to this open end of the seventh round. Throughout the discussion, he kept slamming the political and government behaviour of SYRIZA, and expressed doubts that the party is capable of implementing the agreement with creditors it signed on 13 July. Commenting on the bickering within the party and the open calls by some hardliners that Tsipras should suspend the negotiations on a third bailout package until the party's in-house fracas is resolved, Tatsopoulos made an analogy with Lord Byron and the letters he received in Kefalonia from the candidates to take over the loan for the newly-established Greek country. "Some things have not changed much since," said the writer.