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Dr Ben Wubs

Ben WubsSchool of History, Culture and Communication
Erasmus University Rotterdam
Rotterdam
The Netherlands

Ben Wubs is an associate professor at the Erasmus University in Rotterdam and an appointed Project Professor at the Graduate School of Economics, Kyoto University. He is engaged in various projects related to multinationals, business systems, transnational economic regions, Dutch-German economic relations and the transnational fashion industry.

In 2008 he published International Business and National War Interests. Unilever between Reich and Empire (Routledge) and in 2009 (with Keetie Sluyterman), Over Grenzen. Multinationals en de Nederlandse Markteconomie (Boom). As an Erasmus Fellow (2008 to 2012) he did research into The Dutch Big Four in Germany: AKU, Royal Dutch Shell, Unilever and Philips, 1920-1960.

He co-supervises (with Hein Klemann) a NWO funded project on Rotterdam and its German hinterland called Outport and Hinterland, 1870-2000. Furthermore, Wubs is secretary of the Transnational Rhine Network, a collaborative network of economic, business and technology historians consisting of scholars from various universities in Germany, France, Switzerland, United Kingdom, Japan, Denmark, United States, and the Netherlands. Ben is also a council member of the European Business History Association (EBHA).

Since 2013, Ben has been part of The Enterprise of Culture to conduct research into the transnational connections of the fashion industry since 1945. At the Erasmus University, he started (with Thierry Maillet, Paris) a sub-project called Building brands and fashion fairs. Transnational networks in the fashion industry in Europe which explores fashion fairs and fashion prediction companies in Europe after 1945.