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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.

Tabla de contenidos provista por Syndetics

• Acknowledgments(p. ix)
• Chapter 1 The World the Box Made(p. 1)
• Chapter 2 Gridlock on the Docks(p. 16)
• Chapter 3 The Trucker(p. 36)
• Chapter 4 The System(p. 54)
• Chapter 5 The Battle for New York's Port(p. 76)
• Chapter 6 Union Disunion(p. 101)
• Chapter 7 Setting the Standard(p. 127)
• Chapter 8 Takeoff(p. 150)
• Chapter 9 Vietnam(p. 171)
• Chapter 10 Ports in a Storm(p. 189)
• Chapter 11 Boom and Bust(p. 212)
• Chapter 12 The Bigness Complex(p. 231)
• Chapter 13 The Shippers' Revenge(p. 245)
• Chapter 14 Just in Time(p. 264)
• Abbreviations(p. 279)
• Notes(p. 281)
• Bibliography(p. 343)
• Index(p. 365)

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Library Journal Review

Economist Levinson (The Economist Guide to Financial Markets) shows in this history of the shipping container how its invention helped form our modern global economy by bringing down the cost of transporting goods. He explains how the advent of the shipping container in the mid-1950s-the book is published on the 50th anniversary of the first container voyage-was a radical break from the labor-intensive loading and transport of loose cargo by trucks, railroads, and break-bulk ships. Levinson demonstrates how, despite strong opposition from longshoremen, transportation companies, and government regulators, the economic advantages of containerization won out in the end and how, as a result, the shipping industry, port cities, and whole national economies have been transformed. Levinson presents a clear, comprehensive history of the now-ubiquitous shipping container while highlighting its crucial economic role in global interconnectivity. Highly recommended for transportation and economics collections in academic and larger public libraries.-Lawrence R. Maxted, Gannon Univ., Erie, PA. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Publishers Weekly Review

A book about the history of the shipping container? At first, one has to wonder why. (An eventuality not lost on the author, who muses ?What is it about the container that is so important? Surely not the thing itself?the standard container has all the romance of a tin can.?) The catch, though, is that Levinson, an economist, ?treats containerization not as shipping news, but as a development that has sweeping consequences for workers and consumers all around the globe.? That latter statement drives this book, which is about the economic ramifications of the shipping container?from the closing of traditional (and antiquated) ports to the rise of Asia as the world?s preeminent provider of inexpensive consumer goods (distributed, naturally, using mammoth shipping containers). Levinson maintains his focus on the economics of shipping vast quantities of merchandise, organizing the book into snappy, thematic chapters on different facets of shipping (?The Trucker,? and ?Union Disunion,? for instance), an approach that lends itself well to spot-reading. Throughout, the writing is clean?more informal than rigidly academic (union boss Teddy Gleason is ?a voluble Irishman born hard by the New York docks?)?making the book suitable for casual readers as well as students looking for a different take on the evolution of 20th-century world economics. (Apr.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

CHOICE Review

This is the story of the shipping container, the box that revolutionized worldwide shipping on ships, trains, and trucks, greatly reducing the costs of transportation by replacing item-by-item handling with containers that are easily loaded, transported, and unloaded. It is also the story of innovator Malcom McLean and his insight, persistence, and entrepreneurial judgment in a new mode of bulk shipments. The underlying principles are scale economies, competitive rivalry, and price reductions. The effect is the globalization of the market, reducing the importance of plant and customer locations. The tale starts with the first container ship (4/26/1956) and continues for 50 years, through a long list of solutions to delaying problems: labor (longshoremen) opposition; ICC regulations; the inadequacy of dock and port facilities (some ports gain, others lose); setting of standards (dimensions, strength, stackability); financing; competitors; and cooperation among trucks, trains, and shipping lines. Several interesting points, among many, include the importance of supplying armed forces in Vietnam in convincing the skeptics and the impact of oil prices on the design (size, speed) of container ships. Reads easily, like an extended article in The Economist, for which Levinson was formerly finance and business editor. ^BSumming Up: Recommended. Public and academic library collections, lower-division undergraduate and up. R. A. Miller Wesleyan University

Notas de autor provistas por Syndetics

Marc Levinson is an economist in New York 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 .