Multinational Business and Transnational Regions : A Transnational Business History of Energy Transition in the Rhine Region, 1945-1973

Multinational Enterprise and Transnational Regions offers an innovative transnational approach to the study of the history of economic regions. The historiography of the economic development of the Rhine region, a transnational economic region loosely comprising the cities and areas in the Rhine basin, has traditionally focused on the local and national histories of its constituent parts.

Multinational Enterprise and Transnational Regions offers an innovative approach to the study of the history of transnational economic regions. The Rhine valley is such a region comprising the cities and areas along the Rhine river and its tributaries.

The transition from coal to oil that unfolded between 1945 and 1973 rapidly transformed the region, shattering some of the old river-based connections and creating new ones with the introduction of large-scale cross-border oil pipelines. Multinational enterprises shaped these new regional connections but divergent national government responses gave rise to differentiated development in different parts of the Rhine valley.

Multinational Enterprise and Transnational Regions argues that processes of regional change should be understood from transnational interconnections rather than from local or national perspectives. This book uses a transnational business history methodology to tease out the region’s transformation and to circumvent the national bias in public sources. It will be of relevance to academics and researchers with an interest in regional and transnational European history, international business, environmental history, and business history, as well as practitioners interested in the oil industry, energy and energy history, business history and international business, and associated disciplines.