HEAD OF SOFINA, the giant electricity company, throughout the first half of the twentieth century, Dannie Heineman was a complex and fascinating figure whose life sheds much light on the turbulent times through which he lived.Born in the United States in 1872, Heineman took the helm of a small Belgian finance company in 1901. Within the space of a few years he turned it into a vast and powerful multinational in the electricity sector, with operations in several continents. By the outbreak of the Second World War it had 40,000 employees, in countries all over the world.In 1914, on the strength of his US citizenship, Heineman laid the foundations of the Commission for Relief in Belgium and Northern France, which was to ensure food supplies in the areas under German occupation. Herbert Hoover, future President of the United States, made his name through his involvement with this project.Fluent in several languages, Heineman played an influential role as negotiator in the various international conferences on economics in the interwar period. In the 1920s he was a trailblazer for the cause of a united Europe: he financed and campaigned for the Pan Europa movement of which the Austrian Count Coudenhove-Kalergi was the driving force.Under the Third Reich, Heineman provided generous help to Jewish artists and scientists who were forced out of Germany into exile. He also came to the rescue of Konrad Adenauer, the future Chancellor, who was hounded out of office by Hitler. Adenauer and Heineman were to remain close friends for more than half a century. In 1940 his Jewish origins forced Heineman and his family to flee Europe and to return to the United States, the country of his birth. With the help of Dannie Heineman's personal papers and the SOFINA archives-both of which became accessible only recently-as well as diplomatic archives on both sides of the Atlantic, the author has brought to life a truly exceptional figure.