Why Read It?
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A compelling account of how container shipping developed from modest beginnings into a huge industry that made the boom in global trade possible.
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Shows how container shipping transformed global economic geography.
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Explains how the arrival of the shipping container changed the traditional working practices of the large ports, related industries, and cities, along with its impact on longshoremen, labor unions, and governments.
Getting Started
The Box tells the absorbing story of the shipping container: the world worked one way before it came along and in a completely different way in its wake. Levinson shows how a simple idea played a pivotal role in the development of today’s global economy. He details the success of the standardized container and its use in international shipping, helping the industry to evolve from old, labor-intensive, manual loading of ships to the mostly automated industry of enormous container ships and specialized ports around the world. Levinson also weaves in tales of the history and politics involved, and shows how the greater efficiency of cargo transferral has dramatically altered global trading.
Author
Marc Levinson is an economist and author of three previous books. He was formerly finance and economics editor of the Economist, a writer at Newsweek, and editorial director of the Journal of Commerce.
Context
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Argues that the shipping container was a critical factor in the development of globalization, through cost reduction and increased efficiency.
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Discusses how the dramatic increase in trade brought about by containerization transformed global supply chains, logistics, and outsourcing.
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Provides insight into Malcom McLean, whose drive and entrepreneurism led him to introduce modern containerization methods in 1956 by moving 58 truck trailers on a refitted tanker between Newark and Houston.
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Tells of McLean’s struggle to turn containerization into a global industry, the years of high-stakes bargaining needed to win support from two of the titans of organized labor—Harry Bridges and Teddy Gleason—and the sensitivities about standards that would make it possible for a container to travel on any truck, train, or ship.
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Tells how McLean’s success in supplying the US forces in Vietnam was pivotal in persuading the world of the container’s potential. Details how containerization made possible “just-in-time” manufacturing on a global basis, which meant lower costs and improved productivity.
Impact
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Explains why ports such as New York and London were gradually replaced by new deepwater ports designed to facilitate the loading and unloading of containers.
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Discusses the impact of container shipping on the location of manufacturing and industry to make the most of transport infrastructure and cost savings.
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Examines how government regulators tried to obstruct the expansion of containerization to protect commercial interests and limit competition.
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Looks at the shift in economic power that containerization produced, such as the rise of Asia through the provision of inexpensive consumer goods that could be distributed much more cheaply.
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Discusses new uses for shipping containers, such as their potential to be used as designer homes, or even to hide atomic weapons.
Quotations
“The container is at the core of a highly automated system for moving goods from anywhere, to anywhere, with a minimum of cost and complication on the way.”
“An enormous containership can be loaded with a minute fraction of the labor and time required to handle a small conventional ship half a century ago.”
“Container shipping…has helped some cities and countries become part of the new global supply chains, while leaving others to the side.”
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