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The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger
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Sales rank 270,139
Customers rating (based on 38 reviews)
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In April 1956, a refitted oil tanker carried fifty-eight shipping containers from Newark to Houston. From that modest beginning, container shipping developed into a huge industry that made the boom in global trade possible. The Box tells the dramatic story of the container's creation, the decade of struggle before it was widely adopted, and the sweeping economic consequences of the sharp fall in transportation costs that containerization brought about. Published on the fiftieth anniversary of the first container voyage, this is the first comprehensive history of the shipping container. It recounts how the drive and imagination of an iconoclastic entrepreneur, Malcom McLean, turned containerization from an impractical idea into a massive industry that slashed the cost of transporting goods around the world and made the boom in global trade possible. But the container didn't just happen. Its adoption required huge sums of money, both from private investors and from ports that aspired to be on the leading edge of a new technology. It required years of high-stakes bargaining with two of the titans of organized labor, Harry Bridges and Teddy Gleason, as well as delicate negotiations on standards that made it possible for almost any container to travel on any truck or train or ship. Ultimately, it took McLean's success in supplying U.S. forces in Vietnam to persuade the world of the container's potential. Drawing on previously neglected sources, economist Marc Levinson shows how the container transformed economic geography, devastating traditional ports such as New York and London and fueling the growth of previously obscure ones, such as Oakland. By making shipping so cheap that industry could locate factories far from its customers, the container paved the way for Asia to become the world's workshop and brought consumers a previously unimaginable variety of low-cost products from around the globe.
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| Publisher | Princeton University Press | | Release date | 03/2006 | | Availability | | | Edition | Hardcover |
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The world in a box: Containerisation altered the economics of shipping and with that the flow of world trade. Without the container, there would be no globalisation. (@ The Economist)
Globalization In A Can: An engaging tale of how the shipping container helped usher in globalization.
(@ BusinessWeek)
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 Great for those interested in transportation history or globalization
Not everything that drives international connectivity and the global economy is as high-tech or as talked-about as information technology and ubiquitous jet travel. Case in point: the rectangular metal shipping container, and all the un-sexy infrastructure to support its use, such as specially designed ships, cranes, and ports. Levinson manages to make this interesting by introducing us to some of the key characters in the multi-decade evolution of containerization, and by telling the story of the challenges along the way such as labor relations, regulatory hurdles, opposition and indifference from related transportation sectors, poor business decisions, and fluctuations in the world economy.
Globalization is the result of a multitude of developments, and the vast literature on the subject recognizes this. However, having read a significant sample of this literature, I've noticed that certain technologies (like fiber optic communications) and processes (like international electronic transactions) tend to get an inordinate amount of attention. Levinson's book is a welcome break from that pattern, giving proper attention to one of the most important drivers of globalization.
I learned a lot about the shipping industry, and about railroads and trucking as well. Containerization changed all of these industries dramatically, and altered the way of doing business for countless others. And it all happened without most of us noticing. This book signals that it's time to take notice and learn some lessons from the experience. I hope the book gets a lot of attention from teachers of history, geography, and economics as well as interested individuals.
the cost on the shelf
Along with corporation's hunt to find cheaper labor the container played a key role in globalization. I now ponder what the shipping cost is for an item , (often made in China by U.S. companies),is to get it here. Often it's pennies. Combined with corporate anti-Americanism (anti-American workers) and the digital age where PDF data can be emailed thousands of miles in seconds and containers, there is truly a "death of distance" (another book title) and people who are making a dollar or two a day are not doing so thousands of miles away but for all intense and purposes right along side of American workers.This book is a real eye opener.
 Oh baby is this dull!
Oh baby is this dull! That's it. Dull. Great way to get some sleep. Yawn! Get it?
 Video Killed the Radio Star...
... and the shipping container knocked down these:
Longshoremen
Truckers
Maritime cartels
Military bureaucracy and supply chain
Unionized first-world factory workers
Traditional (or historical) ports
In fact, if you are living in a city that was heavily unionized in 1950, and you are looking around and wondering, "What happened?"... this may answer the question.
"The Box" is HARDLY a glowing commentary on union responses to innovation and productivity enhancements. Nor does it reflect well on the ICC or the government standards board. The message of the book seems to be, if you are reactive, obstructive and slow to change, consider yourself outpaced and replaced. Immediately.
This book is more interesting than you would expect. It is hard to be alive in 2009 and try to imagine doing business in the 50's. Thanks, Marc Levinson, for a great read.
ps -- it would have been nice to have some charts, graphs, or good statistical analysis. Readers aren't afraid of that stuff. All the book's disclaimers aside, you could provide some before-and-after comparisons.
Everyone should read this
Think of something you bought recently. Anything. Chances are, at some point on its journey to you, it and/or various pieceparts of it, spent some time in a shipping container. Chances also are that 50 years ago, you would not have had access to that same item. Or if you did, it was very expensive.
I work in international trade, so I have more than the usual interest in the subject. I bore my friends trying to get them to see how an unassuming thing like a box has changed their lives. But from now on, I'll let Levinson's book do the explaining for me.
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