Kenneth Bertrams is Research Fellow at the National Fund for Scientific Research in Belgium and Lecturer in History at the Free University of Brussels, Belgium. Nicolas Coupain is Historian and Scientific Advisor at Solvay S. A. Ernst Homburg is Professor of History of Science and Technology at Maastricht University, The Netherlands.

• Part I. The Pioneering Years (1863–1914): The Quest for a Leadership and the First Stages of the Internationalization: 1. First steps: when vision and reality meet; 2. A multinational pioneer; 3. Reaching a dominant position; 4. Labor organization, social policy, and societal vision; 5. The consolidation of power; 6. Conclusion of Part I; Part II. The Years of Crisis (1914–50): The Making and Unmaking of International Alliances: 7. The multiple fronts of World War One; 8. From ashes, 1918–22; 9. The making of international alliances; 10. Family and finance through the crisis; 11. The electrolytic industry; 12. Facing war again; 13. Solvay's second post-war; 14. Conclusion of Part II; Part III. The Era of Diversification and Globalization (1950–2012): 15. Growth through diversification: the successful entry into plastics and peroxides; 16. Enlarging scale and scope: backward and forward integration in the 1960s and 1970s; 17. Solvay goes public: financial and organizational limits of a family firm; 18. The long and winding road to Deer Park: Solvay's return to the United States; 19. From bulk to brains: Solvay's entry into pharmacy and the life sciences; 20. Solvay in the age of globalization; 21. Towards sustainable product-leadership; 22. Chemical and plastics of the future: major turning points at the start of a new century; 23. Conclusion of Part III.

'This is perhaps the most important European corporate history to be published this century. We knew about Ernest Solvay the philanthropist and the role of his company in the complex of European cartels from other histories, but for the first time we now have a highly professional account from the inside of a company that was the earliest and largest European chemical multinational, yet that remained a successful and well-managed family partnership until its public flotation on the Brussels stock exchange in 1967 and further global expansion and diversification as a public joint stock company.' Leslie Hannah, University of Tokyo