Manhattan aan de Maas, Manhattan aan de Mersey. Transnationale elites en lokale identiteit in wereldsteden Rotterdam en Liverpool (1945-1975)

From the nineteenth century onward, port cities Rotterdam and Liverpool became important hubs in the global maritime network. Essential to this development were influential business elites embedded in transnational networks. This private influence continued to exist until the start of the 1970s and contributed to a rapid expansion of the cities and their ports. This study aims to distinguish who these agents were, how they were associated with local coalitions and transnational business networks, and how they used the exchange of transnational knowledge for local developments. It builds on the notions of second cities and consociational democracy, in order to construct a new framework to look at non-governmental agency in the expansion of port cities after the Second World War.