This article offers an introduction to the essays in the theme issue, an overview of the reasons behind the recent resurgence of interest in transnationalist phenomena and a consideration of what the term means. Its places the topic in the different fields of international, world, regional, local and national history. The essay argues that transnationalism is best understood not as fostering bounded networks, but as creating honeycombs, a structure that sustains and gives shapes to the identities of nation-states, international and local institutions, and particular social and geographic spaces. A honeycomb binds, but it also contains hollowed-out spaces where organisations, individuals and ideas can wither away to be replaced by new groups, people and innovations.

Germany's heavy industrial sector played a definitive role from 1870 onwards in the formation and subsequent shaping of the young German national polity. As such it has been identified with the aggressive, imperialistic tendencies that characterised so much of German history between 1870 and 1945. That said, industrial and national interests could diverge markedly, with heavy industry sometimes exhibiting a marked preference for transnational strategies, particularly during 1923 and 1924, when France and Belgium occupied Germany's industrial heartland – the Ruhr District. Resulting efforts to integrate the coal and metallurgical industries of France and Germany anticipated the creation of the European Coal and Steel Community after the Second World War.

This article explores the work of the little-studied Economic and Financial Organisation of the League of Nations. It offers a sustained investigation into how this international organisation operated that assesses the transnational aspects of its work in relation to its inter-governmental responsibilities, and demonstrates the wide-ranging contribution of the organisation's secretariat. The second part of the article establishes the way in which transnationalism enabled the United States, the League's most influential non-member, to play a crucial role in shaping the policy agenda of the League. It also shows how a growing sense of frustration in its work prompted EFO to attempt to free itself from inter-governmental oversight and become an independent organisation to promote economic and financial co-operation in 1940 – a full four years before the creation of the Bretton Woods agreements.

The pursuit of disarmament was central to the work of the League of Nations throughout its existence, but it was a relatively small and consistent set of national representatives who sat on the many bodies created to deal with the issue. Unfortunately, the gradual development of a sense of ‘transnational’ community among these delegates was never able to overcome the more powerful imperatives of national self-interest. Disarmament was always tied too closely to the issue of security for the individual governments of the major powers to view it from anything other than a strictly national strategic perspective.

This article examines the stance of J. P. Morgan & Co. and the House of Morgan in European affairs from 1933 to 1939. Within the firms, two conflicting themes were apparent. The first drew on the traditional involvement with Europe and sought solutions to problems in using an international approach. The second was a growing tendency to place the US perspective ahead of an internationalist outlook. The essay argues that in considering transnationalism and private bankers, emphasis needs to be placed on the centrality of personal ties.

As the Italian anti-fascist exiles reorganised after the establishment of a full dictatorship in 1925, they were confronted by a series of difficult issues that no longer could be dealt with in the national context. The overriding need to heal the divisions within the Italian left now would be conditioned by choices made on the international level. The abdication of the Western democracies at Munich meant to many on the left that the Soviet Union was the essential bulwark against fascism. Within the Italian Socialist Party Pietro Nenni defended the alliance with the Communist Party and support for the Soviet Union. Alternatives offered by Angelo Tasca questioned both the exclusive alliance with the Communists and unquestioning support for the Soviet Union. Tasca also developed a European perspective which tended to marginalise the Soviets both ideologically and diplomatically. These positions put him at odds with Nenni. Tasca's position was complicated by his parallel membership of the French SFIO, his French citizenship and, in 1940, his decision to support Vichy. Tasca's defection and Nenni's triumph made the Italian Socialist Party more hostile after the fall of fascism to new thinking on European unity and alternatives to unity of action with the Communists.

This article examines the politics of communication between British and West German protesters against nuclear weapons in the late 1950s and early 1960s. The interpretation suggested here historicises the assumptions of ‘transnational history’ and shows the nationalist and internationalist dimensions of the protest movements' histories to be inextricably connected. Both movements related their own aims to global and international problems. Yet they continued to observe the world from their individual perspectives: national, regional and local forms thus remained important. By illuminating the interaction between political traditions, social developments and international relations in shaping important political movements within two European societies, this article can provide one element of a new connective social history of the cold war.

In response to the pull of prospective membership of the European Union (EU), the states, societies and economies of the Balkan countries are undergoing unprecedented change. Their transformation has been shaped by a double legacy of communism and ethnic conflict, distinguishing their efforts from the transitional experience of their counterparts in east central Europe. How do these legacies interact with the goal of becoming a part of the EU? Is political and economic liberalisation a sufficient foundation for the Europeanisation of the Balkan states? How can the extent of their post-communist and post-conflict transformation and European integration be gauged? To tackle these questions, the Centre for the Study of Global Governance at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), London, and the Institute for East European Studies at the Free University, Berlin, organised a two-day conference to examine the nature of transnational relations in the Balkans. With the financial support of Volkswagen Stiftung, the conference, entitled ‘Transnationalism in the Balkans: The Emergence, Nature and Impact of Cross-national Linkages on an Enarged and Enlarging Europe’, took place at the LSE in November 2004.

Werner Abelshauser, Jan-Otmar Hesse and Werner Plumpe, eds., Wirtschaftsordnung, Staat und Unternehmen. Neue Forschungen zur Wirtschaftsgeschichte des Nationalsozialismus (Essen: Klartext Verlag, 2003), 392 pp., €29.80 (pb), ISBN 3898612597.

Conan Fischer, The Ruhr Crisis 1923–1924 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), £55.00 (hb), ISBN 0198208006.

Harold James, The Deutsche Bank and the Economic War against the Jews (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 268 pp., £27.50 (hb), ISBN 0521803292.

Reinhard Spree, ed.,Geschichte der deutschen Wirtschaft im 20.Jahrhundert (Munich: C. H. Beck, 2001), 232 pp., €12,50 (pb), ISBN 3406475698.

Hans Erich Volkmann, Ökonomie und Expansion. Grundzüge der NS-Wirtschaftspolitik (Munich: R. Oldenbourg Verlag, 2003), €39.80 (hb), ISBN 3486567144

Iginio Ariemma, La casa brucia. I Democratici di Sinistra dal PCI ai giorni nostri (Venice: Marsilio, 2000), 225 pp., €12.39 (pb), ISBN 8831773798.

Nicola Rossi, Riformisti per forza. La sinistra italiana tra 1996 e 2006 (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2002), 168 pp., €10.50 (pb), ISBN 8815084312.

Antonio Tatò, Caro Berlinguer, Note e appunti riservati di Antonio Tatò a Enrico Berlinguer. 1969–1984 (Turin: Einaudi, 2003), 336 pp., €14.50 (pb), ISBN 880616595X.

Michele Salvati, Il partito democratico. Alle origini di un'idea politica (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2003), 138 pp., €8.00 (pb), ISBN 8815096647.