Multinationales: Une histoire du monde contemporain is an ambitious collective undertaking that aims to make multinational corporations intelligible as historical actors in our global, common history. The starting point of the large volume is a paradox: multinational corporations are omnipresent in contemporary life, shaping what we consume, how we work, the technologies we use and increasingly the political and ecological conditions within which societies operate. Yet, despite their ubiquity and our ability to name them, they remain surprisingly difficult to apprehend at their core. For instance, most people can easily identify corporate brands, products or logos, but have a much weaker understanding of the multinational corporations that stand behind them. These organizations often appear as abstract, distant and almost intangible entities, despite their profound influence on contemporary societies.

At its core, the book engages with a deceptively simple yet fundamental question: what are multinational corporations, how did they acquire their contemporary position and power and how have they shaped the history of the modern world?

The volume argues that the complexity in answering these questions is not accidental. Public understandings of multinational corporations are frequently mediated by the narratives corporations themselves produce, while the legal, political and economic structures that underpin their power remain less visible. Even the language commonly used to describe them contributes to this abstraction. For instance, terms such as ‘multinational’ can obscure important questions concerning ownership, political influence, legal organization and economic power. Against this backdrop, the book seeks to historicize and demystify the multinational corporation by reintegrating it into the broader history of the contemporary world and its underlying relational history—relationships that have shaped today’s knowledge of history. And interestingly, while acknowledging the limitations of the term itself, the editors retain ‘multinational’ because of its widespread use and its capture of a defining feature of these entities: their capacity to organize economic, legal, fiscal and political activities across multiple jurisdictions and beyond national borders. The multinational corporation is thus approached not simply as a business organization but as an extraterritorial actor whose influence extends across states and societies.

Structurally, the book is conceived as a global history of multinational corporations from the mid-nineteenth century to the present. Rather than focusing solely on individual firms or business leaders, it reconstructs the historical development of multinational enterprises within wider processes of colonial expansion, industrialization, war, globalization and neoliberal transformation. Although the narrative is anchored primarily in France and the United States, reflecting both the origins of many contributors to the volume and the historical centrality of these countries to the development of multinational capitalism, examples from other regions are woven throughout the volume in later chapters, mirroring the globalization of exchanges and relationships as well. The result is not a linear story of corporate expansion, but a more complex account that highlights both continuities and ruptures in the evolution of multinational corporations.

Organized into five chronological sections, the book traces the transformation of multinational enterprises across successive phases of modern history: the globalization of capital and colonial expansion (1840–1900), industrial society and crises (1901–1945), the emergence of an American-led international order (1946–1979), the rise of neoliberal globalization (1980–1999) and the contemporary era characterized by recurrent crises and the unprecedented power of multinational corporations (2000 onwards). Throughout these periods, the volume revisits major historical events (from colonial expansion to world wars and contemporary globalization), not simply as political or military developments, but as moments that were profoundly shaped by and consequential for multinational corporations.

The richness of the volume also lies in the diversity of its objects of analysis. Rather than focusing exclusively on iconic multinational corporations, the chapters explore a wide range of actors, decision-makers, sectors, commodities and infrastructures that collectively illuminate the emergence of multinational capitalism. For instance, readers encounter the Singer sewing machine and the early globalization of consumer goods, the construction of the Suez Canal and the rise of Lafarge, the colonial expansion of companies in the Congo, the development of global banking through HSBC, the emergence of brands such as Coca-Cola, the growth of industrial agriculture and the chemical industry, the rise of modern management practices, the globalization of luxury goods, offshore finance and the spread of fast-food and tobacco industries. Significantly, the historical trajectory traced throughout the volume extends to contemporary corporations such as Lafarge, whose involvement in the Syrian conflict since 2011 led to its recent indictment for complicity in crimes against humanity in France. This continuity between historical and contemporary cases reinforces one of the book’s central insights: multinational corporations are not peripheral actors in world history but are deeply embedded in the economic, political, social and cultural transformations that have shaped the contemporary world.

Interestingly, the volume is not solely an academic history. The editors bring together researchers, notably historians, but not solely, as well as journalists and civil society actors, with the aim of reflecting a broader commitment to restoring multinational corporations to public debate. The contributors share the conviction that corporations are key actors in world history yet are often absent from dominant historical narratives. Several chapters highlight the ways in which corporations actively shape collective memory through archives, public relations and narrative construction. In this sense, the book transcends its descriptive nature to make a political, critical and analytical contribution, seeking to make visible actors and processes that have often remained hidden from or unseen by public scrutiny.

The timeliness of the volume stems not only from its historical ambition but also from its diagnosis of the present and what is to come. The editors situate the project against a backdrop of intensifying global crises: persistent inequalities within and between societies, the resurgence of nationalism and xenophobia, growing challenges to international law, new forms of imperial domination and colonialism and the escalating environmental consequences of climate change. In this context, multinational corporations are positioned not as peripheral actors but as institutions deeply implicated in shaping the structures through which contemporary changes and crises have emerged.

The book is to some extent sceptical of neoliberal narratives that present corporations as natural drivers of solutions to global challenges. By documenting their historical involvement in systems of colonial expansion, economic domination and political influence, the volume invites readers to question assumptions that corporations can simply be entrusted with resolving the very problems to which they have not only contributed but are sometimes at the root of. This said, the volume does not (aim to) advance a fatalistic account of corporate power, accountability and responsibilities. Indeed, one of its central messages is that the contemporary situation of relative impunity for multinational corporations is neither natural nor irreversible. By demystifying multinational corporations and reintegrating them into public history, the volume seeks to unveil their position and make them visible once again as political and social actors that can be scrutinized, challenged and regulated.

Although Multinationales is not written for a Business and Human Rights (BHR) audience, it offers several insights that are highly relevant to ongoing debates within the field. Most importantly, it contributes to a growing effort to historicize the relationship between multinational corporations, states and systems of power.

Indeed, one of the volume’s most significant contributions lies in its treatment of the state. Much of the BHR literature has focused on corporate responsibility while often taking the role of the state either for granted or conceptualizing it primarily in terms of absence, incapacity or regulatory failure. The influential ‘unwilling or unable’ framing,Footnote ¹ for example, highlights situations in which states fail to protect individuals from corporate-related harms. The historical record assembled in this volume presents a different picture. States emerge not merely as passive observers or ineffective regulators, but as co-architects of the political, economic and colonial arrangements through which multinational corporations expanded and consolidated their power. Rather than standing outside the dynamics they are expected to govern, they appear deeply embedded within them. For BHR scholars, this historical perspective serves as an important reminder that questions of corporate accountability cannot be fully understood without examining the state’s constitutive role in shaping corporate power itself, and vice versa. This also aligns with recent scholar efforts to reposition the state within the BHR movement.

This insight resonates with broader developments within contemporary BHR scholarship. Recent contributions have increasingly sought to move beyond managerial understandings of corporate responsibility and to situate business-related harms within wider political, historical and economic structures. The historical perspective offered by this volume reinforces these efforts by demonstrating that contemporary debates concerning accountability, remedy and governance cannot be fully understood without considering the longer histories (and broader contexts) through which corporate influence was produced and legitimized.

The volume also speaks to growing concerns regarding the limitations of neoliberal approaches to business responsibility. One of the book’s underlying questions is whether multinational corporations can realistically be expected to solve the very social and ecological crises to which they have historically contributed, and to what extent. By documenting their involvement in colonial expansion, economic domination, political influence and the production and widening of global inequalities, the volume invites a more cautious assessment of contemporary narratives that position corporations as agents of social change. Without denying the possibility of corporate contributions to solutions and remedies, which aligns with recent academic efforts in the BHR field, the historical record assembled here encourages readers to interrogate the assumptions upon which such expectations rest. The volume hence invites scholars and readers more generally to rethink how multinationals are conceptualized and everything this comes with, from accountability to remedy.

More broadly, the book encourages scholars (and readers) to reflect on whether contemporary debates may sometimes reproduce analytical separations that obscure the relationship between corporate power, state power and broader political-economic structures. By extending beyond the historical material it presents, it offers a reminder that contemporary discussions of accountability are inseparable from the historical processes through which multinational corporations acquired their influence, legitimacy and capacity to shape the modern world.

Precisely because the book is not written from a BHR perspective, readers approaching it from this field may find in it a rich foundation upon which to build further research and dialogue. One of the volume’s greatest strengths lies in its ability to historicize multinational corporations and to situate them within broader political, economic and social transformations. In doing so, it opens important avenues for BHR scholarship. While the book focuses primarily on institutions, structures and historical processes, its insights provide a valuable basis for future work on the experiences and perspectives of those most directly affected by these dynamics. Greater engagement with how individuals and communities experienced, resisted and contested the forms of power described throughout the volume could further enrich our understanding of the human consequences of these historical developments. Such work would also contribute to advancing contemporary discussions surrounding the third pillar of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs), namely access to remedy, by connecting historical structures of power to the lived experiences of rightsholders.

Similarly, although the volume engages only indirectly with contemporary BHR frameworks, its historical analysis offers important resources for scholars working on Human Rights Due Diligence (HRDD), narratives, corporate accountability and emerging regulatory initiatives. By illuminating the historical processes through which multinational corporations acquired and exercised power, the book provides a broader context for understanding current governance debates and invites further reflection on how these historical insights were constructed and how they might inform contemporary efforts to address business-related human rights harms. This also allows us to understand the roots of the current economic and political order, which might entail changes when it comes to the way in which scholars build further the BHR movement.

Although the volume is anchored primarily in France and the United States of America, it also follows multinational corporations across colonial and postcolonial contexts in Africa, Asia and the Middle East. This broader geographical scope reinforces the book’s ambition to situate multinational corporations within global historical processes. Readers may nevertheless wish for a more sustained engagement with contemporary developments in regions such as Southwest Asia and North Africa (SWANA), where the legacies of colonialism, resource extraction, geopolitical intervention and corporate involvement in conflict continue to shape political, economic and human realities.

Finally, the book’s considerable length and density reflect the scale of its ambition. At the same time, its publication in French may limit its accessibility to wider international audiences. Given the significance of its contribution and the originality of its historical perspective, an English translation would greatly enhance its impact and facilitate engagement with scholars, practitioners and students across disciplines and regions.

These observations do not diminish the volume’s contribution. Rather, they point to promising avenues for future engagement between historical scholarship and BHR research and teaching. Multinationales: Une histoire du monde contemporain is a significant contribution. Its achievement lies not simply in documenting the history of multinational corporations, but in rendering them visible as historical, political, economic and legal actors whose influence has too often been obscured by the very narratives through which they are commonly understood. By unveiling their positionality, the volume challenges the tendency to view them as natural, inevitable or purely economic actors and instead reveals them as historically contingent institutions whose power has been produced, contested and transformed over time. For BHR scholars, the book’s greatest contribution lies not in offering new regulatory solutions or accountability frameworks, but in challenging the assumptions from which such debates often begin. In doing so, it invites scholars to situate contemporary debates about corporate accountability, state responsibility and global governance within the longer histories that made such debates necessary in the first place.