In post-war Greece, Western Allies, the country's conservative political elite and parts of the middle class have shared a dream of consolidating and maintaining the country's western, bourgeois-liberal orientation. In 1947, with the civil war still raging in the country, the Greek government chose the path of the capitalist countries and joined the American programme for the reconstruction of war-torn Europe. Miltiadis Zermpoulis examines the social and political changes brought about by the civil war, the dominance of conservatives in the political arena and the promotion of political surveillance and compliance technologies in the daily life of Greece's second largest city, Thessaloniki.