Many are convinced of the need to ‘change Europe’. This book springs from the same need and begins to explore ways to satisfy it, moving in several directions in the footsteps of Albert Hirschman. This is because in the years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, he successfully re-entered the political and cultural life of Germany after half a century of absence, and was a privileged witness to the historical process that led to the unification of Germany, the expansion of the EU to the east, and the birth of the Euro. However, as is well known, this great process of continental-scale transformation has ended up faltering, and has thwarted the high hopes for prosperity, development of democracy and social justice of which it initially offered a glimpse. To explore the crux of this matter, Meldolesi discusses some aspects of the economic and political theory of this great German-American social scientist in order to elucidate the logic of his ‘Propensity to Self-Subversion’ (as a theoretical tool for intellectual transformation aimed at recognizing and promoting change), and to draw from it several lessons for the future of our local realities, of Italy and of Europe.